Law Blog 2.0

Over the last year Employer-Employee “Global” Privacy Policies are becoming more common place (in-part) due to recent legislation in Connecticut and Michigan. Until this recent legislation, within the United States there were few situations where an employee had an independent right to access, inspect, or challenge information collected or held by the employer (unlike his/or her counterpart within the European Union). Within the European Union employers have
been bound by EU Directive 95/46/EC entitled the “European Data Protection Directive”. This directive applies to employment or employee data collected by an employer within the European Union or the European Economic Area regardless of where processed or stored. Employers when creating an employer-employee privacy policy should carefully consider the implications of implementing an overly broad privacy policy. Data security breaches, e-Discovery obligations, and the ability to investigate criminal or other non-productive activity may be hindered by an unnecessarily broad workplace privacy [...]