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03/17/2009 02:05:10 PM · #1 |
I am hoping someone here can point me in the right direction, if there is one. Here is the situation:
Some people at a company decided to give a party. To do so they wanted to send out invitations to each employee. Hence, one employee went to another who works with employee information and asked if they could have a list of all employees and their addresses. Without hesitation this employee is given one.
I am avoiding a lot of details to avoid giving out anything that could be considered revealing, but the above paragraph is the gist of the situation. My questions are:
1) Lacking a specific policy concerning this type of information, is there any legality that addresses this in general?
2) Despite any legal provision or lack thereof, do you think this is right? Wrong? Makes no difference?
3) Would you be upset if this happened at your workplace? and 4)when you asked the person who is the boss of the person who gave out the information simply "Do we have a policy concerning the giving out of an employees personal information to another employee?" and their response was "No we don't. I don't have time for this and the only problem I have is with you for asking the question." (actually the response was not this nice or polite, but no need to repeat the ugliness)
I have searched a bunch of sites for anything regarding this, but since HR and laws regarding it are not even close to my area of work I may be looking in the wrong areas.
Message edited by author 2009-03-17 16:31:30. |
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03/17/2009 02:44:02 PM · #2 |
Just to be the "Devil's Advocate", wouldn't it be much easier to simply email an invitation to all the employees at their work site?
Proceeding in this manner would be much quicker, provide for an automated RSVP and would in no way contravene the Privacy Act.
Ray |
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03/17/2009 03:08:24 PM · #3 |
| As far as I know there are no federal "privacy act" laws that pertain to employee information being given out to other employees. From what I understand it's a company by company thing. But I could be wrong, since I haven't had to deal with anything like this in a while. |
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03/17/2009 04:22:14 PM · #4 |
Just to be clear, this is not a company sponsored party?
If that's the case, if the person worked where I work they'd be fired. |
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03/17/2009 04:31:14 PM · #5 |
Thanks for responses so far...
Ray: No company email to use as you stated.
LD: No, not a company sponsored function. In fact, the person who actually ended up with the list does not even work for the company anymore. |
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03/17/2009 04:33:37 PM · #6 |
Even if the party organizer wasn't given the information, they could easily have gotten it by going around to each employee's desk or cubicle and getting hair or skin cells from their desk or keyboard, taken that to a lab for DNA analysis and then crosss-referencing that with the Government database we all know exists. So for me, this is a moot issue.
On a serious note, I can understand your concern and can't understand your boss's lack thereof. I would generally be opposed to the willy-nilly handing out of my contact info, but not sure if there are laws against it, though it seems there should be. |
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03/17/2009 04:35:36 PM · #7 |
| Sounds like someone didn't get invited to the party! |
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03/17/2009 04:50:23 PM · #8 |
There are laws that make giving employee information out illegal. All human resources directors should be aware of them. Home address information is considered private information. I'm not sure if it's HIPAA that extends into this realm or if it's another law, but it's there. Your employer can't give out any private information about you to another employee or anyone outside the company either.
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03/17/2009 04:52:48 PM · #9 |
I would be a little more than ticked off, party or no party the Co should not be giving out any info without prior consent and it makes it all that worse that the person "no longer works there" which in the hands of the wrong nutcase could spell trouble if they are disgruntled ;) LOL try that here where I live and you would be inundated with lawsuits haha.
-dave |
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03/17/2009 05:11:13 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by ajdelaware:
Sounds like someone didn't get invited to the party! |
Ha! I am not going, but I did get the invite. That's how I found out they gave out the info. |
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03/17/2009 08:34:09 PM · #11 |
Here is a page from Business.com linking to MANY examples/templates for employee privacy policy. I dredged this out of the 5th page of a google search for "privacy of employee information"... A casual overview of the precediung 4 pages shows that there is not, in fact, any uniform and enforceable set of regulations on this except at the government level; that is to say, if you are a government agency or a State university or some such thing, then you do have legal requirements that must be met, but private employers don't have these requirements.
There appears to be a STRONG trend amongst HR people to create and implement policies within private companies that make a shenanigan like the one you've just suffered cause for outright dismissal from the company. Which is how I think things OUGHT to be, for sure. I'm appalled this happened, and even more appalled at your superior's attitude regarding it.
R.
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