If you, do not know what an employee and employer’s privacy rights are and do it wrong, are you prepared to face the consequences of actual, compensatory, or punitive damages and damage to your own professional reputation and standing within your work community? And what about COVID-19 or the next pandemic? For the foreseeable future, the workplace will be raising issues about an employee’s privacy rights to refuse to wear PPE, be tested, vaccinated or contact traced both at work or in their personal life. Such privacy issues are inevitable since COVID-19 and the very nature of any pandemic is its highly communicable nature and affects not just the employee but others as well. So, if fortune favors the prepared then this webinar will help you be ready to help guide you through this maze of privacy rights by exploring the foundations, current state, and possible future changes of privacy in the workplace. 

So, to start that preparation attendees will learn:

• What the U.S. Constitution (1st, 4th ,5th and 14th Amendments) says about privacy
• How do the courts define privacy and how does it affect the workplace?
• What is meant by “Invasion of privacy “and what are the balancing tests and exceptions courts use to determine if the following concepts were violated?
   - “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
   -  “intrusion into seclusion.”
   - “unreasonable publicity” of one’s private life
   - False light/defamation
   - Privacy rights in an investigation
• Remedies and employer defenses for “invasion of Privacy” claims
• How and why employer obligations differ in the private and public sectors
• The future of workplace privacy in response to COVID-19 regarding PPE, Vaccinations (including vaccination passports), Contact tracing, transparency to the employer/co-workers re: exposure, etc. and what are the acceptable exceptions to all the above.

Areas Covered

• Foundations of privacy law
• Federal v State privacy law differences
• Different types of Invasion of Privacy claims
• Searches
• Political speech and privacy
• Monitoring and Surveillance
• “Employment at will” v privacy
• Employer investigations and employee privacy rights
• Statutory privacy rights
• Work from home (WFH) and return to work (RTW) privacy concerns from COVID-19.
• PPE
• Vaccinations (and vaccination passports)
• Contact tracing
• Exposure transparency

Course Level - All levels

Who Should Attend

All level Managers, Supervisors, Human Resources, Employee Relations, Labor Relations, Attorney, and Union Officers/Representatives/Stewards, all levels of Law Enforcement or Security staff. 

Why Should You Attend

The last thing any responsible organization wants is to violate an employee’s rights or its own policies! Especially if we are talking about privacy rights which have lately become a flashpoint in the world according to COVID. But it still happens, even in those organizations with the best intent. This is because what you don’t know can and at some point, will most likely hurt you and when it comes to privacy, we’re talking lawsuits and other potentially negative outcomes such as loss of professional reputation or even market share. And no one needs that! And the answer is to be prepared by making sure you know what you can and cannot do!

So, do you know what an employee’s and employer’s privacy rights are? And if they claim such rights exist under the U.S. or a State constitution, statute, or common law if they are right how you will respond? Can you identify if any policies, practices, or actions create an unreasonable “intrusion of seclusion” or place someone in a “false light” in the public eye (defamation)? Are you inadvertently appropriating someone’s name or likeness without their consent? And what about monitoring, surveilling, or searching employees without violating their privacy rights? And if you risk doing it wrong, are you prepared to face the consequences of actual, compensatory, or punitive damages and damage to your own professional reputation and standing within your work community? This webinar has been developed to answer all these questions and more by exploring the foundations, current state, and possible future changes of privacy in the workplace.

Topic Background

Most employees will insist they have privacy rights, especially at the workplace. But few can state what those rights are. Likewise, not every employer or manager knows what their obligations are when it comes to respecting an employee’s privacy rights or what the penalties are for not doing so. This webinar has been developed to explore the foundations, current state, and possible future changes of privacy in the workplace.