PSU Tells Public Officers Not to Join NeoPeople HR Pilot Programme
The Public Service Union (PSU) is instructing all public officers not to participate in a new NeoPeople pilot programme. The union is accusing the Ministry of Public Service and the Briceño administration of launching the initiative unilaterally without the union’s consent.
The PSU said it had become aware that NeoPeople sent communications directly to the private email addresses of public officers, inviting selected individuals to join the initial pilot programme and complete employee onboarding, including reviewing and updating personal information.
The union says the launch directly contradicts its repeated demands for the programme to be suspended pending meaningful consultation and calls the move a demonstration of bad faith.
According to the PSU, it laid out specific conditions that needed to be met before any employee registration could proceed in a letter dated August 6th. Those conditions included suspending registration until a legally binding Memorandum of Understanding governing the HRMIS system is finalised; full disclosure of the NeoPeople contract in response to a Freedom of Information Act request the union submitted back in March; designation of a data privacy officer as required under the Data Protection Act; written confirmation that no officer would face disciplinary action for declining biometric enrolment; disclosure of a completed Data Protection Impact Assessment; and proper employee consent as required under the Act.
The PSU says none of those conditions have been met, and until they are, the union does not support any public officer’s participation in the pilot.
The union raised a separate concern as well: that the ministry shared public officers’ private email addresses with NeoPeople, a third-party vendor, without those officers’ knowledge or consent, something the PSU describes as a serious privacy breach and exactly the kind of risk it has warned about regarding external vendors handling personal data.
The circular laid out specific instructions for members who receive any communication from NeoPeople or the ministry regarding the pilot. Members are being told not to activate any account or submit personal or biometric information, not to respond substantively without first consulting the union, and to preserve all related communications, including invitation emails, onboarding instructions, registration deadlines, and any messages from HR or supervisors referencing participation or potential consequences for declining.