Workplace monitoring has become a matter of particular contention in recent years. In a world where remote and hybrid working practices have become the norm, many employers have concerns about what their employees are actually doing while ‘at work’ elsewhere. This has led to an increasing amount of discussion about monitoring employees who are working … Continue Reading
Back in March 2020 we reported here on some new guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office concerning DSARs. In particular, we looked at what it said about the employer’s rights not to comply with a DSAR to the extent that it was manifestly unfounded or manifestly excessive, and concluded that despite the superficially encouraging words … Continue Reading
Your report is done, so what next? Where does it go now and what should you do with all your papers? As a rule, your “client” for the purposes of the investigation is your employer, not any one or more of the individuals who may have participated in it. It needs to be able to … Continue Reading
Here are brief answers to two more of the questions raised at this week’s webinar on Effective Settlement Agreements. Can we make it a term of a Settlement Agreement that an employee will not make a DSAR after he leaves? Yes and no. Yes, in that he can sign up to such a term. No, … 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
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
Learning point 4: a disclosure does not have to be either true or in the public interest to qualify for protection, provided the worker has a reasonable belief that both are the case… 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
In part 1 of this blog series, we asked how employers facing a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) should be dealing with ‘mixed data’ cases, i.e. when a third party’s personal data is intertwined with that of the requester? Mixed data comes in many forms; for example, an email from John to a colleague saying … Continue Reading
Some DSARs can be wonderfully straightforward: “Can I have a copy of my personnel file?” “Absolutely, here you go” “Can I have a copy of the notes from my appeal hearing?” “Of course, all yours. Any time” However, a large number of DSARs submitted by employees are far more taxing: “Can I have all personal … Continue Reading
In the second of our five part blog series on Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs), we examine the notion of “complexity” and how that might affect the way you respond as an employer to a DSAR. What is “complex”? Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), data controllers must respond to DSARs “without undue delay … Continue Reading
Just when we thought we were getting to grips with some of the stickier issues around Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs), then along comes the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and numerous new ambiguities over how its DSAR provisions might work in practice. We are waiting for the ICO’s guidance and update on its … Continue Reading
Clearly another quiet week over at Acas if its new guidance on employment references is anything to go by. It is, in all honesty, a bit on the basic side, even including an answer to that never-asked question – what is an employment reference?… Continue Reading
Part 7 of this series looked at how far an employer might be exposed if employees whose images were used in internal or external marketing or other corporate communications then withdraw their consent to that processing. Our Global IP and Technology team has now provided some useful further thoughts on this risk, accepting that the … Continue Reading
A client put this to us the other day – assuming that a photo or video footage of a current or former employee counts as his personal data, which it does, how far will his GDPR “right to be forgotten” allow him to reach into the employer’s records and require that image to be deleted?… Continue Reading
With a clear link between increased employee wellbeing (both in terms of physical and mental health) and reduced sickness absence, many employers may use renewed New Year ambitions to adopt or promote employee wellbeing programmes. Businesses have introduced measures including step challenges with free pedometers, fruit ‘desk drops’ and health monitoring stations in the workplace. … Continue Reading
It all began as an everyday tale of Montenegrin academics and some animals, and ended up in a European Court of Human Rights decision with potentially significant consequences for employers across the EU and the UK.… Continue Reading
With apologies for the interruption to this series, here are two further reader questions on the GDPR as it will apply to employers in the UK. I have heard that my corporate email address is my personal data. Does that mean that a DSAR sent to my employer should bring me copies of everything in … Continue Reading
In response to our invitation to contact us with GDPR enquiries, one kind reader has bowled us this particular googlie: Most people in business will have accumulated large contact lists in Outlook email systems or similar, containing many names and other contact details built up over a number of years. Will the GDPR really require … Continue Reading
Here are answers to two more questions arising from next year’s GDPR, this time on website recruitment and data breach notification. More to follow in this series soon. We have a contact form section on our website to allow people to submit details (name, email, phone number & CV) if they want to be informed … Continue Reading
This is the next in our series of posts on questions raised at our recent GDPR webinar. If you have any views or further queries in these areas, please do get in touch. What impact will the GDPR have on Model Clauses? Model Clauses are standard contractual terms adopted by the European Commission for the … Continue Reading
What would count as sharing data with a third party? For example, if we are booking employees on an external training course where we would only provide their name, would this amount to sharing data with a third party? The sharing of an employee’s name with an external training provider would certainly amount to the … Continue Reading
At our recent webinar on “GDPR Compliance: How UK Employers Can Meet the 25 May 2018 Deadline” we were asked a number of questions via the chat facility. Those questions showed that with less than a year to run and much to do before then, there is still widespread uncertainty as to the detail of … Continue Reading
