Page 9 - CCCA61_2013

CCCA_V7No1_Dept-EmploymentLaw-FIN_CCCA_V6No4 2/12/13 2:57 PM Page 9 Employment Law by employers. Both refer to the general applying the same rules to all employees. be better to proceed with considerable cau- principle under their privacy legislation Ultimately, the benefit of such restrictions tion before implementing invasive social that organizations can only collect person- or monitoring must be weighed against the media policies or monitoring. al information that is reasonable in the cir- potential harm being protected against and cumstances for a valid business purpose and the possibility of either a privacy complaint Landon P. Young is managing partner at note that such checks may yield personal or lawsuit. The challenge currently is that Stringer LLP in Toronto. He practises information that is irrelevant to the indi- the scope and risk of such liability in Canada employment and labour law and is an adjunct vidual’s suitability for employment. Again, is at present unknown. Therefore, unless the professor at the University of Western Ontario there is no clear or specific guidance as to employer has a vital interest at stake it may Faculty of Law. when the legal line is crossed. The Ontario Court of Appeal case of Jones v. Tsige has recognized a new tort of “intrusion upon seclusion,” which is effec- tively a tort of breach of privacy. The court You told us you’d in that case awarded damages against a bank employee who accessed a co-worker’s per- sonal bank accounts numerous times with- like to work more out justification. Although the application of this case may be limited to similar facts, the efficiently. How’s court noted in its reasons that the common law can respond effectively to the challenges posed by the routine collection of personal information in technological form. Just how effectively remains to be seen. What should employers do? 19% Despite the lack of legal clarity, most employers would benefit from having a social media policy that addresses, at a min- imum, cyber-bullying and disclosure of confidential information, as these risks exist faster sound? in practically all workplaces. Employers clearly have the right to establish such restrictions as part of the terms of employ- Quicklaw for Microsoft Office. ® ® ment. While it may not necessarily prevent Focus on delivering work for your clients, not switching between programs. misconduct, the employer’s position will be ® Now, when you’re creating a Word document or working in Outlook , you strengthened should it choose to discipline can pull content directly from Quicklaw, the open web and your computer or terminate an employee. with intuitive simplicity and reduce the time required to conduct Regarding potentially more invasive background research by up to 19%*. We’ve teamed with Microsoft to bring restriction or monitoring of employee use this innovation to our customers’ existing workflow processes. It’s just of social media, employers should consider one example of intuitive tools created for legal minds, by legal minds. ® carefully what essential business interests Another LexisNexis innovation that enables better outcomes. require protection from social media and For more information go to www.lexisnexis.ca/quicklaw-office what may be the least intrusive means of doing so. Employers should also consider the level of the employee within the organ- *A study conducted in the United States in July 2011 by KS&R and CDI Market Research, in conjunction with National Legal Research ization. More stringent rules and monitor- Group (NLRG), involved 600 time-test observations with multiple legal scenarios and documents. LexisNexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used under licence. Quicklaw ing of senior executives or employees with is a registered trademark of LexisNexis Canada Inc. Microsoft and Outlook are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other products or services may be trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective companies. © 2013 LexisNexis Canada Inc. All rights reserved. QLMO-Ad-02/13 access to particularly sensitive information would likely be easier to defend than