From my Google search, no, but I wanted to hear what other people had to say. As the title says, my girlfriend has been filling out applications which apparently ask if she is disabled or has a disability. In their list of disablities, they include: Autism, auto-immune disorder, blind/low vision, cancer, heart disease, cerebral palsy, depression or anxiety, epilepsy, gastrointenstial disorders, intellectual disability, nervous system conditions, and psychiatric conditions (bipolar, schizophrenia, PTSD, etc.) among other things.
I was immediately angry when I found this out, so I googled it and the answer I found was no, it's not legal to ask about. They are only allowed to ask if you need reasonable accomodation to perform your job. So asking about things like depression and anxiety and gastrointestinal disorders doesn't make any sense to me. Granted, in the example I saw, there was a “I don't wish to answer” box, but does that make it OK? She said she's just been lying (since there's no reason her employer for a shitty temporary job needs to know about unrelated mental health issues) and I suggested that she should just avoid jobs with questions like that, or tell them outright that she has no reason to tell them.
So I'm just wondering since I'm far from a expert on all of these things, does this sound right? I'm I justified in being furious about this? And if so, is there anything we can do? It's not really worth it to file complaints against an employer just for interview questions, especially when she supposedly sees this asked all the time. But I'm still just pissed off and I want to be able to do more.
TL;DR: Recruiters are asking my girlfriend if she has any disabilities at all regardless of if they're related to the job. Is is legal, and if not, can we do anything about it?
Thank you for taking the time to read!