Employee Privacy Policy

What is an employee privacy policy?

An employee privacy policy is a formal legal document that explains how an organization collects, uses, stores, and protects personal information about its employees. It sets expectations for both employer and employee, outlining what information can be gathered, how it is processed, and the safeguards in place to prevent misuse.

The crucial question most U.S. employers are wondering about is if adoption of an employee privacy policy is a must. Well, it is “yes” and “no” at the same time, and here is why:

• General federal law: Basically there is no unified or codified federal privacy law obliging employers to adopt an employee privacy policy. Unlike in the EU, the U.S. has a very fragmented regulation of private data that mostly happens at state levels;
• Supplementary federal regulation: On a federal level there are a number of legislative acts occasionally targeting regulation of employees’ privacy at the workplace. However, they are mainly focused on the protection of certain types of personal data.
• State regulation: Only a few states within the U.S., including California and Illinois, apply a broader approach to regulation of privacy of employees’ data at the workplace. This includes adoption of a unified legal framework of storage, usage, and collection of personal data.

All in all, having a solid employee privacy policy template at the workplace is a good business practice. It ensures legal compliance and allows establishing a systematic approach to usage, storage, and collection of personal data.

A strong employee privacy policy example generally covers a wide range of things, including:

• scope of application (e.g., current and former employees, interns);
• definition of what constitutes an employee’s sensitive or personal data;
• detailed explanation of ways how an organization can use obtained data;
• description of transfer and sharing of personal data with third parties;
• amendment and acknowledgment process (mandatory for all policies); and
• rule for surveillance and monitoring of internal systems (if applicable).

This policy could be used in conjunction with other corporate documents, including the Social Media Policy or Employee Code of Conduct.

How to make a solid employee privacy policy template?

Drafting a strong employee privacy policy template requires a lot of attention to detail. Inclusion of certain elements is essential to make sure that the final document is complete and addresses all important concerns.

Below we made a list of the most important clauses every privacy policy template should have:

Types of Personal Data

In legal theory there are two main types of privacy data an organization may collect from their employees:

• General personal data (e.g., full name, address, and past working experiences); and
• Sensitive personal data (e.g., gender, sex preferences, political opinion, religious beliefs, health or medical conditions).

While both types of data should be well protected, sensitive personal data requires an extra layer of care from an employer. In particular, an organization shall inform their employees each time when they make a collection of sensitive data, as well as the explicit purpose for which such collection is being made.

While all organizations collect, store, and use their employees’ personal data, not all of them do the same with sensitive data. Thus, a good employee privacy policy example shall address how each of the two types of personal data is being processed by the organization.

Collection and Storage Requirements

Every employee privacy policy shall lay out exact ways of collection and storage of employees’ personal data. This shall not be a general wording but a precise list of exact actions through which collection or storage takes place. For example:

• Collection takes place through submitted job applications and resumes, signed internal corporate forms and consents, ID documents, submitted bank or insurance details, etc.
• Storage takes place via password-protected systems, encrypted databases, locked filing cabinets, and much more.

An employee shall have a right to access their personal data any time. To do so, each organization shall appoint an internal compliance manager or data protection officer. This is a specially designated person who oversees and effectively implements provisions of the policy at the workplace. Apart from that, the compliance manager remains a one-stop shop for all questions employees may have about the collection, storage, and transfer of their personal data.

Surveillance at the Workplace

Inclusion of this chapter into an employee privacy policy template is not mandatory. It shall only apply to organizations that use on-site security surveillance.

If this is applicable to your business, make sure your employees are well informed in advance about workplace surveillance. All employers shall make sure that such surveillance does have certain limits. In particular, it shall not take place in a restroom or kitchen.

Finally, inclusion of the purpose of such surveillance at the workplace is a must. In most of the cases it ensures internal security of the organization’s premises and equipment in it. If there are any other purposes for which surveillance is being used, they should also be listed in the text of the policy.

Monitoring Online Activity

Another key element an employee privacy policy may have is the inclusion of an online activity monitoring clause. This clause is only necessary if the organization monitors:

• work emails and messages in working group chats;
• internet browsing activity from all working devices, including laptops, phones, or tablets;
• phone calls, including their scripts, duration, and numbers, etc.

If online monitoring takes place within the organization, employees shall know about that well in advance. Thus, the wording of an employee privacy policy template shall explicitly state the principle of no expectation of privacy while using the organization’s systems.

How to customize a privacy policy template at Faster Draft?

To get a fully customized policy template for your business or organization, follow a few easy steps below:

1. Click the “Create Document” button.
2. Answer simple questions in the form.
3. Select a template’s format – Employee Privacy Policy Template PDF or Word.
4. Make a payment.
5. Download and instantly use a customized policy within your organization.