Employee Personal Information

Long gone are the days when companies could claim ownership in their employees’ data, at least in California. As our prior posts have indicated, the definition of “consumer” under the CCPA is extremely broad and extends to employees. A consumer is not only a customer or user of a business’ services, products or websites, but also a business’ employees, contractors and job applicants.

However, despite taking effect in January 1, 2020, the CCPA’s application is currently limited with regard to personal information of employees, contractors, and job applicants collected and used in the employment context. This hold delays application of some provisions of the CCPA with respect to personal information collected in the employment context (originally until January 1, 2021 and now as extended to January 1, 2022 or 2023 as set forth below), including the rights to access data and deletion of data. As a reminder, the exemption also only applies to the extent that the employer collects/uses the personal information in the context of its employment relationship and for employment purposes. Thus, any use of such personal information by an employer outside the scope of the strict employment relationship would remain covered under all of the provisions of the CCPA. For example, if an employer were to allow its insurance company to collect employee data in order to market other insurance services to those individuals, this would not be within the scope of employment and therefore subject to all of the consumer rights otherwise available under CCPA.
Continue Reading Employee Data under CCPA