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Privacy

Court refuses to punish employer for scrubbing employee’s cellphone

01/05/2015
A federal court has dismissed a former employee’s claim under the Electronics Communication Privacy Act alleging that his employer illegally destroyed valuable information when it remotely wiped clean his iPhone after he resigned. That’s good news for IT departments that must protect company information that might be stored on former employees’ smartphones.

Workplace Drug Testing

01/01/2015

HR Law 101: Drug testing and substance abuse prevention programs can involve substantial legal liability if employers don’t manage and administer them properly. If your organization decides to implement a drug testing program, there are ways to minimize the risk of employee lawsuits …

OK to monitor email without consent?

12/23/2014
Q. We suspect someone is conducting inappropriate business using their work email. Is it illegal for us to monitor their email without their consent?

Email/Internet Usage

12/15/2014

HR Law 101: Employers have any number of legitimate reasons to monitor employees’ email and Internet usage. Beyond personal productivity issues, you risk significant loss should an employee download a virus or other damaging software or engage in illegal activity conducted on company computers …

HIPAA: Compliance Rules

11/15/2014

HR Law 101: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 made changes to three areas of the continuing-coverage rules that apply to group health plans under COBRA …

Facing legal action? Know when to put a ‘litigation hold’ on your email purging

11/06/2014
Most employers aren’t aware of the risk of deleting old emails at the wrong time.

NLRB: Firing employees for Facebook posts was unlawful

10/08/2014
Here’s another reminder to employers to exercise caution in imposing discipline for conduct on social media.

Onboarding: How to prevent confidentiality breaches by new hires

09/29/2014
Although most employers are sensitive to the need to protect their own company’s confidential information, they may not be as attuned as they should be to the other side of the coin.

Social media & HR: Know your state privacy law

09/25/2014
The Seyfarth Shaw law firm has created a free report, the Social Media Privacy Legislation Desktop Ref­­er­­ence, that explains each current state law concerning social media and employees’ rights to its use.

How do we rein in our staff on social media?

09/19/2014
Q. What are the rules and laws about social media? We have employees who have generated Facebook pages with our company name. They are also posting information that we are not ready to publish—such as the opening of another store in a new city.