I work for a company - not retail - which now has tentacles right across the UK. Anybody who's signed a new contract over the last couple of years- including me - has new a clause in it:

It is a condition of your employment that you may be required to comply with any request by an authorised person to conduct a personal search. This will be done by a memberof the same sex in the presence of a manager.

There's only me who's ever kicked up about this. It doesn't seem to bother anyone else. I signed, on the grounds that you're deemed to have accepted the contract anyway, simply by turning up for work, even if you haven't signed it.

But I wrote out a separate sheet and signed it, to go on my file, laying out my objection to this clause - namely, that it it doesn't compel the company to justify making such a search, and it doesn't even say the request has to be reasonable. No "If we have reason to suspect ..." or any other qualification.

Taken to its illogical conclusion, it means the company could make me strip to my underpants every time I left the building, and not even have to explain why. I know that wouldn't happen, but I was still being asked to sign a bit of paper saying I agreed that they could if they wanted to.

Now, whether that sheet of paper lying on my file actually carries any weight remains to be tested ...