Employers collect, store and manage more data about their employees than ever before, creating unprecedented privacy complexities as well as significant compliance issues. Evolving technologies designed to support employer efficiencies, such as digital monitoring and biometric authentication, as well as the collection and use of sensitive personal information for diversity initiatives and other employee programs, create new and novel risks.
Moreover, companies that previously had no need to collect sensitive health information from employees have grappled with issues relating to the collection of temperature data, vaccine information and COVID-19 test data, as well as the appropriate retention of this information, as a result of the global pandemic.
In January 2023, through the enactment of the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), California became the first U.S. state to enact a comprehensive data privacy law covering employee data, bringing this data into the scope of one of the most rigid data protection regulations in the world. Employers face many challenges in managing associated compliance requirements for their California workforce, including the unstructured nature of employee data and the complicated intersection of data protection and employment laws. Less than a year after the CPRA took effect, the California Attorney General’s Office announced an investigation sweep into California employers’ compliance with these requirements, signaling that regulators are focused on employee data practices in addition to consumer data practices.
