Privacy

Beware pre-hire exams that could reveal genetic information

11/01/2024

You know you can’t exclude otherwise qualified candidates because they’re older, disabled and in need of accommodations, pregnant or planning to have children. But what about screening candidates for potential medical problems down the line? No, you can’t do that, either.

Guidance addresses 3rd-party AI worker surveillance

11/01/2024

The guidance warns that employers that use third-party consumer reports—including background dossiers and surveillance-based AI or algorithmic scores about their workers—must follow Fair Credit Reporting Act rules.

How to write a data-collection policy

09/23/2024

We already know we participate in a surveillance economy. It may be worse than you think. Payroll collects a lot of data from employees and is being asked to do a lot more with it. Maybe it’s time for a data-collection policy.

Court: Your policy can require employees to keep ‘spy cams’ turned on

05/28/2024

A federal court has upheld an employer’s handbook rule requiring full-time camera monitoring of employees. The ruling is a victory for employers who want to track the behavior of employees they can’t directly observe.

Think twice before demanding workers’ social-media passwords

04/10/2024

To get around social-media roadblocks, some employers require employees to either open their accounts or turn over their social-media usernames and passwords. This obviously raises privacy concerns and has caught the attention of state legislators in several jurisdictions.

Beware data-collecting email from your ‘boss’

04/08/2024

If you get an email in the next few days that seems to be from your CEO requesting a list of employees and their Social Security numbers, watch out! It may be part of an elaborate phishing scheme in which con artists harvest employees’ personal data, use it to file fraudulent tax returns and then pocket income tax refunds.

Know your obligations for safeguarding employee data, preventing cyberattacks

03/22/2024

Data breaches may seem inevitable, but that’s no consolation for employees who have been victims of identity theft. Many a lawsuit alleging negligence has been filed against employers that were lax about data security. To prevail in those kinds of cases, you must be prepared to show you made reasonable efforts to prevent data leaks.

Limit liability from data breaches that expose employee info

03/11/2024

Imagine this nightmare scenario: You’ve contracted with a vendor to enter personnel data into a new computer system. You hand over confidential employee info, including Social Security numbers, addresses, names of dependents, health records and bank account routing numbers. Then the vendor notifies you that the employee information was somehow stolen. What will you do? It happens more often than anyone would like to admit.

Access to Personnel Files: 50 State Laws

02/16/2024

No federal law grants employees the right to inspect their personnel files. However, many states do give employees that right and spell out the terms under which employees are allowed to inspect their files. Here’s a state-by-state list of laws governing access to personnel files.

Monitoring: Beware fixating on productivity

07/26/2023

Are supervisors asking to install tracking software on their remote employees’ computers and devices? They may be suffering from what Microsoft has termed “productivity paranoia.”