In the rapidly developing world of AI, federal regulators are again signaling that businesses and HR managers cannot depend on a “data made me do it” defense to employment decisions made with the help of AI systems. Expanding on guidance it released in May, the US Department of Labor (DOL) issued new guidance on October … Continue Reading
In a decision of 8 April , the Belgian Data Protection Authority has reminded employers of the reach of the GDPR principle of right of access by the data subject. An employee of a school who had left more than 5 years earlier asked for access to his full personnel file and to “every document … Continue Reading
The recent decision of the Hamburg Labour Court concerning a German works council’s attempt to enforce a ban on the use of AI in a workplace makes it clear once again that employers cannot simply let the use of AI run its course unchecked. Employers are well advised to take a moment check their current … Continue Reading
The use of ChatGPT and its peers to make work easier and faster – whether permitted, tolerated or prohibited – is already part of everyday working life in many companies. However, the spread of that technology has raced far ahead of the law so the legal consequences of that use (employment rights and obligations, data … Continue Reading
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has issued legislation to regulate the collection and processing of personal data in the country (the PDPL). While the law was originally due to come into force on March 23 last year, the enforcement date has been postponed until March 17 of this year (as of the date of this … Continue Reading
State and local legislatures were active throughout 2022 in passing laws and ordinances that will impact employers of all sizes and all industries in 2023. Click HERE for our summary of these laws and related developments, including important developments in California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, and elsewhere! If you haven’t already, you might also want … Continue Reading
Now that we’re almost half-way through 2022, it’s time again to cover all of the development in state and local labor and employment laws. It’s been a busy time in the state legislatures and city councils, with lots of new laws and amendments to existing laws. In fact, due to the large number of updates, … Continue Reading
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has enacted a new comprehensive data protection law (the PDPL), which comes into force on 23 March. The first standalone data protection law of its kind in KSA, the PDPL is a significant development and seeks to develop the Kingdom’s legislative landscape in a way consistent with its 2030 Vision … Continue Reading
From Labor & Employment Partner Katharine Liao and our Data Privacy & Cybersecurity colleague Kristin Bryan, below is a post from Squire Patton Boggs’ Consumer Privacy World blog covering recent legal developments involving electronic monitoring of employees in New York State. Beginning on May 7, 2022, employers in New York State who engage in electronic … Continue Reading
The pandemic has given an enormous boost to working from home, in particular (to state the obvious) when it was mandatory. Where roles permitted it, even those employers and employees most vigorously opposed to it simply had no choice but to accept it. When quizzed about the reasons why they oppose WFH, most employers’ main … Continue Reading
A new decree (Royal Decree-law 28/2020) was passed on 22 September to regulate remote working in Spain. As for many countries worldwide, Spain has recently seen a marked increase in the number of employees working from home as part of its bid to decrease physical contact between individuals and curb the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to … Continue Reading
The striking down of the Privacy Shield by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last week may have significant consequences for UK and EU employers which are headquartered in the US or which otherwise transfer the personal data of their employees to that country. Brief history – the original EU Data Protection … Continue Reading
As California employers continue to grapple with compliance with employee-related portions of the California Consumer Privacy Act, it is worth keeping an eye on a follow-on law, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which now has enough signatures to be on California’s November 3, 2020 ballot. Of particular concern to employers should be the fact … Continue Reading
In a bid to reawaken the Australian economy, the Federal Government is developing a return to work health and safety “toolkit” and is encouraging workplaces to become “COVID-safe”. At the same time, the Government is continuing to encourage the public to download its COVIDSafe digital contact-tracing App.… Continue Reading
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency has changed life as we know it, including by severely disrupting business on a nationwide scale. In some cases, employers have been forced to temporarily close their doors and cease operations, while others have had to make radical changes to the workplace in order to maintain operations. … Continue Reading
The changes in the economy brought on by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), commonly known as the “coronavirus,” present challenges to employers trying to manage their greatest resource – employees. A cross-practice team involving our Tax Strategy & Benefits, Labor & Employment and Data Privacy & Security lawyers have published this alert that identifies some of … Continue Reading
The big-picture information about Coronavirus being issued by the Government at present is all well and good, but it does not (in fairness, cannot) address the multitude of little spin-off questions arising for employers every day. We held a webinar on this earlier this week, with members of our Employment, Commercial, Data and Health & … Continue Reading
Some new clarification from the Information Commissioner’s Office yesterday about that grey area between individual privacy rights on the one hand and the public interest on the other. Against the background of the Coronavirus crisis (and perhaps recognising that any other position would be politically terminal), the ICO has made it clear that even though … Continue Reading
Just flicking idly through the ICO’s new guidance the other evening, as you do when the only alternative is Ant & Dec, and two paragraphs caught my eye. In the section relating to DSARs which are “manifestly unfounded” (and can therefore be batted away by the employer) appear two examples, where:… Continue Reading
Since the National Labor Relations Board issued the precedent-changing Boeing Company decision in late 2017, the Board has continuously illustrated when employment policies will survive scrutiny under the National Labor Relations Act. Recently, in Argos USA LLC, the Board clarified its position about three common types of employment agreements or policies, i.e., those concerning confidentiality, … Continue Reading
Unheralded and unannounced, recently revised GDPR guidance from the ICO removed one small source of comfort for employers facing DSARs from employees. It used to say that the 30-day time limit was paused, the clock stopped, if you asked the requester for information to clarify his DSAR and it was not provided. This was not … Continue Reading
In January 2018 we wrote about Ribalda –v- Spain, a European Court of Human Rights case in which a number of supermarket employees were awarded compensation for breach of their privacy rights. They had been stealing quite handsomely from their employer over some months, as they freely admitted, but nonetheless thought it entirely improper that … Continue Reading
Joining the growing list of states enacting privacy and data security laws, on July 25, 2019, New York’s governor signed into law the “Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security” Act (the “SHIELD Act”), amending the state’s data breach notification and cybersecurity law. The SHIELD Act applies to “any person or business that owns … … Continue Reading
The Greek Data Protection Authority has imposed a 150,000 EUR fine on PriceWaterhouseCoopers Business Solutions SA for – get this – asking their employees’ consent to process their personal data. It may strike you as counterintuitive (and going against everything your mother ever told you) that asking consent could get you into trouble, but where … Continue Reading