Workplace Privacy

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I’m looking forward to joining my colleagues Dennis Hirsch and Jay Levine for a roundtable discussion of “Big data, data analytics and the law: What your company needs to know about the next big thing” on May 13. Here is a glimpse into what I plan to talk about from the employment lawyer’s perspective:

Even if we don’t know exactly how big data works, we know what it can do for us in our daily lives. Movie suggestions on Netflix. Targeted coupons at the grocery store. Cheap airfare and hotel rates. Facebook suggestions of people we may know. There is a certain creepiness to all of this but many (most?) of us seem willing to overlook it for the convenience and opportunities it provides.

Human resources departments now are figuring out how to use big data in the workplace. LinkedIn was one of the first businesses to recognize the value that data held for employers. At its most basic level, LinkedIn can steer its individual members to potentially attractive jobs that fit their profile and, for recruiters, it provides a rich database of candidates, including people who aren’t even looking for a new job. But there are a lot more than just recruiting opportunities. Companies like Knack now promote tests like Wasabi Waiter and Dungeon Scrawl that it claims will reveal job applicants’ talents, traits and skills to permit employers to identify the best candidate for their needs. JP Morgan Chase apparently has developed software that analyzes its own employees’ data to try to identify which ones are most likely to “go rogue,” so it has time to stop them before they do.
Continue Reading Big data in the workplace

We all pretty much know the drill at this point. Organization announces data breach, sends out notices as required under state and/or federal law to those individuals that are affected, offers some kind of identity theft protection or credit monitoring service, awaits public criticism and backlash. The NLRB and the American Postal Workers Union (“AWPU”)…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has now brought its first whistleblower enforcement action against a publicly traded company under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 for utilizing an overly broad employee confidentiality agreement. Specifically, the SEC alleges that KBR, Inc., has violated the Act by implementing employee confidentiality agreements that “potentially discouraged” employees from…

Back in the 1960’s, legendary bluesman Muddy Waters wrote a song called “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had.”

Now, it is Sony Pictures that is singing the blues, as damages continue to mount following the cyber attack on its data networks just before Thanksgiving. A shadowy group with possible connections to the North…

Saman Rajaee was a salesman for Design Tech Homes. He used his personal iPhone to connect to his employer’s Microsoft Exchange Server, which allowed him to access his work-related email, contacts and calendar from his phone. Design Tech did not have a BYOD policy. When Rajaee’s employment terminated, Design Tech remotely wiped his phone, which…

Recent multi-million dollar settlements highlight the importance for employers of complying with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). They also highlight that, when it comes to class action lawsuits in the employment-law context, the FCRA is the new FLSA!

The FCRA has very specific requirements employers must comply with if they engage a background check…

There seems to be a news story every day detailing employee misuse of social media. In fact, in a recent survey released by Proskauer Rose LLP, more than 70 percent of the 110 businesses surveyed reported they had to take disciplinary action against employees for misusing the technology.

Living in the U.S.A., we have…

Two recent decisions – one from the federal district court in New Jersey and one from a federal Administrative Law Judge – potentially will have significant impact on the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) enforcement of business’s data security obligations.

FTC v. Wyndam Worldwide

In FTC v. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, the New Jersey federal district…

In a harsh rebuke of the EEOC’s method of attempting to prove that Kaplan Higher Education Corp.’s consideration of credit history for hiring in select positions was discriminatory, the Sixth Circuit, only three weeks after oral argument, issued a decision upholding the federal district court’s order excluding the EEOC’s expert opinion from evidence and dismissing…