Data Privacy Laws That Every HR Professional Should Know
Privacy laws are fundamental in many occupations, especially those covered by universally recognized and legally binding confidentiality agreements concerning privileged information, like doctors and advocates. However, HR professionals are governed by a completely different set of obligations and responsibilities while upholding the workplace privacy policy.
More than sixty countries worldwide have either proposed or already enacted a postmodern data protection law in one form or the other to date to deal with such highly sensitive data breaches. Even the Supreme Court of India delivered a verdict in 2017 highlighting the right to privacy as an extension of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty.
Here, we’ve described the different aspects of HR privacy policy concerning the nature of privileged information that HR professionals should keep under wraps. We will also highlight how corporate data privacy laws can help regulate information disclosure and its significance to HR professional development.
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Dimensions of HR-Employee Privacy Policy
HR professionals are obligated to uphold the workplace privacy policy and maintain the confidentiality of sensitive personal information of employees. Collected data about age, sex, religion, race, or origin must remain confidential, just like unique ID, birthdates, addresses, and other private details stored in classified employee personnel files.
Employee medical records are covered by another complex set of legal obligations that require appropriate compliance practices and controls over sensitive personal data related to employees’ health conditions. Compartmentalization of different categories of employee personal data is an essential part of HR Privacy Practices. Keeping separate records is considered best practice in an ongoing workplace investigation that escalates to a legal court battle. If deemed discoverable, distinctly classified employee records can save from accidentally revealing unrelated confidential details during this legal process.
HR Privacy Policy and Competing Responsibilities
The corporate privacy policy is often impugned upon by the competing duties that HR professionals carry out. HR personnel are genuinely loyal to employees who ask for assistance and attentively work out strategies to impartially benefit all concerned parties. Still, their primary objective is to serve the company’s interests, which may even require disclosing confidential employee information to limit the firm’s risk exposure.
Upholding the HR privacy policy is not always consistent with employee interests, either. Keeping the corporate liabilities under wraps may demand hiding certain information from the employees. Internal management rulings, imminent staff exits, prospective mergers and acquisitions, financial security, and other sensitive matters are strictly on a need-to-know basis.
Safeguarding The HR Privacy Policy
Workplace issues have become a public concern, pushing companies to hybrid inquiry and resolution methods to protect their interests while still handling employee complaints sincerely and sensitively. Internal departments consult with third-party HR professional organizations to provide outside counselling for workers in workplace conflicts. Internal HR keeps serving the company’s best interests, while external HR provides a judgment-free outlet for employees to share confidential information. Such thoughtful employee benefits enhance confidence and faith in the investigative process by promoting impartiality and confidentiality.
A significant part of HR compliance and decision-making relies on collecting employee information, even for non-data-driven decisions. With the rising trend of data privacy laws, businesses need to be more aware of how personal data is handled efficiently and how strict data protection law enforcement can impact your company. Currently, Sections 43A and 72A of Indian I.T.Act, 2000 are providing legal remedies to privacy violations in India. Hoping for the stringent Indian data protection laws soon.
At Cyberra Legal Services, our expert data privacy & cybersecurity team has collectively spent years delivering dedicated techno-legal services to our clients. Over the years, our proud team has handled all kinds of cyber world issues across every industrial sector with finesse to make us a premier cybersecurity organization.