Employees Who WaiveTheir Privacy Rights

Employers may be tempted to advise employees or potential employees that they have no expectations of privacy in the workplace — that the loss of privacy is a condition of employment. An employee who agrees to work under these conditions, it could be argued, has agreed to the unlimited collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information.

Whether this is really consent — clear, informed, voluntary consent — is questionable. And the main reasons for collecting only the personal information that's required for appropriate purposes gets lost with this approach. A more reasonable solution is to specifically ask employees to consent to explicit, limited, and justified collections, uses, and disclosures of their personal information.