Related Practices
Related Industries
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Covington lawyers have helped numerous clients understand and comply with the increasingly complex set of rules governing privacy in the workplace. On a range of issues including the privacy of employment records, employee monitoring, the use of biometrics, and pretexting, our lawyers provide thoughtful and valuable advice to help our clients manage human resources and other workplace operations.
We regularly advise clients regarding proper methods for collecting and processing employee personal information, including preparing notices, consent forms, and contracts in connection with employment relationships. In addition, we draft acceptable use policies for Internet, e-mail, blogging, and other network activities in accordance with existing laws and practices regarding workplace monitoring. We often undertake detailed reviews of companies’ privacy practices in connection with internal audits, as well as proposed transactions, and we offer training and compliance programs to help clients ensure that they are managing employee information responsibly.
Of particular importance to many multinational corporations is the transfer of employee data from Europe or Asia to the United States, and we have helped clients identify the proper legal basis for effecting such transfers. Finally, our lawyers are expert in counseling companies that have suffered security breaches involving employee personal information, and we work with them to develop appropriate responses to affected individuals and regulators.
Representative Matters
- Provided guidance to a major technology and manufacturing company in connection with the unauthorized posting of employee personal information on a third-party webpage. Our efforts on behalf of the client included working with Internet service providers to remove the posted information and providing notice to potentially affected individuals and applicable state regulators.
- Conducted a detailed review of the human resources operations of a large pharmaceutical company to assess compliance with data protection and privacy laws and regulations in both the US and EU, in anticipation of possible certification under the US-EU Safe Harbor regime. Our extensive written report described potential compliance issues and recommended specific remedial actions.
- Advised a major pharmaceutical client on the collection and use of its employees’ biometric information and social security numbers for internal purposes.
- Advised a major sports league on the procedures for conducting pre-hire background checks under the FCRA and state law, and drafted appropriate contract language and consent forms accordingly.
- Advised a multinational company on the privacy issues implicated by development of an internal network that could automatically scan the content of employee e-mail during transmission.
- Conducted a pan-European and selective US survey of laws and regulations affecting an employer’s right to monitor employee’s Internet use and review electronic communications. We have also advised numerous clients on the law governing call recording and access to (and disclosure of) employee e-mail, including in connection with several personal crises and actions.
- Advised numerous clients regarding the privacy implications of conducting an informal internal audit of certain foreign business practices at the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Drafted privacy-related provisions for use in data processing and outsourcing arrangements and advised on state and tort-based employee privacy laws in connection with a proposed acquisition.
- Prepared extensive privacy training materials and participated in training sessions for employees of European subsidiaries of a US-based company.
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