Workplace Privacy Laws: 10 Things Every Employer Should Be Aware Of

Business comes before privacy, but what are the boundaries?

What you’ll discover:

1. Priority of business above privacy
2. You have more wiggle room than the government. 3. Your property is your business.
4. You are free to listen in—as long as your employees are aware. 5. You are free to make the internet safe for work.
6. Passwords: avoid them at all costs.
7. Understand the facts about lying detectors
8. GPS and cameras are OK, but no candids
Simply say no to drug privacy.
10. After-hours are not permitted.

Business and personal life collide in the great American workplace.

You’d be concerned if the hardworking workers at your start-up or small firm had no private or social life. Somewhere, there’s an employee who doesn’t slack off, who wouldn’t consider using work time to play fantasy football or watch cats twerk on Vine, and who never uses personal days to attend smoke-filled parties or Flat Earth Society meet-ups. Don’t simply employ her when you discover her. Duplicate her. (But, do you really want to work with her?)

Nobody loves a boss who is always on the go. Nevertheless, as the boss of a small firm, you have duties when it comes to understanding what your staff are up to. What are the privacy rights of on-the-clock workers? To what degree may the firm monitor, listen in and spy on employees, search them, or drug test them? How can the company monitor workers’ after-hours activities? Here are a few broad guidelines on employee privacy for your corner cubicle or workplace.

1. Priority of business above privacy

When individuals go to work, they give up a lot of their daily privacy in return for a job and income. In order to keep up with the fast-changing contemporary workplace, courts and legislators must balance employees’ expectations of privacy at work with employers’ legitimate business requirements to monitor workers.

Investigate your state’s privacy laws and state labor bureaus for employment privacy laws.

2. You have greater freedom than the government.

The Bill of Rights’ privacy principles create the long-cherished American right to be alone. These constitutional privacy safeguards defend against invasive government action, not workplace demands from private sector companies. Although devoted employees may sometimes mistake their boss for a sovereign head of state, a small company owner is hardly the leader of the free world. People may anticipate less privacy at work than they do at home. Just make sure that your policies are public.

3. Your property is your company.

Boundaries between personal and business get blurred in the digital era, when private information is mixed in with professional output. Employees work from home or on the road using the company’s laptops, smart phones, and mobile devices, complicating privacy; they also work on business-related email, messages, and documents using personal computers and gadgets. It’s a digital shambles.

In general, the firm’s workstations, papers, lockers, and automobiles belong to the company and may be searched by employers. Similarly, workers have no expectation of privacy in connection with data kept or sent through the employer’s computers, email accounts, phones, and mobile devices.

4. You may listen in as long as your employees are aware.

Workers should not feel fully at ease conducting personal e-mail and phone calls while on the job. The Electronics Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) makes it illegal to intercept “any wire, oral, or electronic communication” without approval. But, the 27-year-old legislation, which Congress is now amending and reforming, has a “business use” exception that permits a firm to monitor its phone and e-mail systems. The boss has the ability to listen in.

Employers may also require workers to sign an agreement prior to monitoring their electronic conversations under the ECPA. This is always a wise policy. After all, businesses have a legitimate commercial interest in ensuring that employees are not sending inappropriate e-mails or mishandling calls from customers, clients, or coworkers. Or they may spend their days playing fantasy football.

Bear in mind that some states have implemented legislation that are equivalent to or stricter than the ECPA.

Hence, before you start taping conversations, check your state’s regulations on recording phone calls.

5. You are free to make the internet suitable for business purposes.

Office workers having all the fun. There is no sleeping on the job, just some leisure to buy online, troll blogs, and browse NSFW websites. What are businesses concerned about? It’s not just porn. For starters, there is liability, lower worker productivity, issues surrounding confidentiality, private information, corporate reputation and security, and much more. Employers may monitor the websites that their employees visit, as well as prohibit and regulate their employees’ usage of the Internet at work.

6. Passwords: avoid them at all costs.

Employees interact as well as peruse the web. Your workers have legions of Facebook friends and LinkedIn contacts, not to mention Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr profiles, Pinterest boards, and a plethora of other social and mobile connections. Several businesses would love to get the passwords of their employees. Not so quickly. New regulations ban businesses from requesting workers to give their social media account identities and passwords, protecting employee digital privacy. The National Conference of State Legislatures has compiled a list of state legislation governing employer access to social media usernames and passwords.

7. Understand the facts about lying detectors

When it comes to speaking the truth, some employees are neither Boy or Girl Scouts. To keep things honest at work, you may ask employees to undergo lie detector exams. With a few exceptions, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) forbids employers from doing so. This is the poster that the DOJ mandates employers to display on the workplace to clarify EPPA rights and consequences for violations.

8. GPS and cameras are OK, but no candids

A lot of work is done outside of the workplace. Employers may use GPS tracking in phones and automobiles to follow employees during work hours for valid business purposes. Several states demand it.

If you install video cameras for security or other business objectives, don’t conceal them and make personnel aware that they are being watched. Even if your organization is featured on a reality program, keep cameras away of areas such as locker rooms and restrooms.

9.Simply say no to drug privacy.

Some employees believe that if they worked with better people, they would have greater people skills. Medicines are ineffective. Clearly, companies desire a workplace devoid of illicit narcotics, chemicals that interfere with productivity, or both.

With a few exceptions, private employers are not obligated to conduct drug or alcohol tests. Several states limit when and how employers may conduct drug tests. Inhale the drug-testing laws in your state.

Marijuana attitudes and legislation are changing. You may hire people who use marijuana for medicinal or other reasons. Ensure that your employee policies stay up with the new rights.

10. After-hours are not permitted.

America has a diverse range of companies and a workforce to match. Employees let their hair down in a number of ways while they are not working. It’s probably not your problem if your employees sign anti-balloon-release petitions. Some staff may smoke cigarettes or engage in harmful hobbies such as motorcycle riding, shark fishing, or eating high cholesterol meals. Numerous states have implemented lifestyle discrimination legislation that make it illegal for companies to influence workers’ legitimate off-duty behavior.

Remember to maintain your privacy policy confidential at all costs. Some workers still mistake the workplace with their own man cave, so be sure to reiterate your rules:

Write an employee handbook that contains your company’s privacy policies and procedures.

Establish policies for personal employee e-mail, phone calls, and voice mail, as well as Internet and social media usage.

Provide information on corporate monitoring, drug testing, and surveillance on or off business premises, as well as other privacy-related policies and information. Get formal permission from your staff to prevent misunderstandings, misconduct, and worse.