The Regional Labor Court (LAG) of Baden-Württemberg, in its ruling of December 20, 2018 (Ref. 17 Sat 11/18), granted an employee a comprehensive right to information against his employer with regard to all personal data collected about his person. The right to information was explicitly confirmed in relation to personal data resulting from internal investigations and data from potential whistleblowers ...
Today, on the 27th March 2019, the bill of law 7399 amending articles L. 232-2 and L. 233-4 of the Labour Code as well as article 28-1 of the amended law of 16th April 1979 establishing the general status of public servants (hereinafter the "Law") was passed by the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies. The leitmotif underpinning the Law is the same as that for the parental leave reform in 2016, namely enabling employees to achieve a greater balance between their private and professional lives ...
Employers in Kentucky are now expressly permitted to require an employee or prospective employee to agree to arbitrate or engage in some form of alternative dispute resolution as a condition of employment. On March 25, 2019, Gov. Matt Bevin signed a statutory amendment authorizing this change to KRS § 336.700. This law applies retroactively to agreements that have already been executed by employees before March 25, 2019. This amended statute does a number of things ...
A number of cases have looked at worker status in recent years, focused mostly around the ‘gig economy’ with claims against companies including Uber and Deliveroo. The gig economy typically involves individuals working in temporary positions in the service industry, such as food delivery or private couriering. The sharp increase in the number of people working in this sector has led to a huge shift in the cultural and business environment ...
On 13 March 2019, the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Baden-Württemberg (LfDI BaWü) published the latest version of his guidebook on employee data protection. In this brochure, the LfDI BaWü offers an insight into his work and explains his opinion regarding the various points of view surrounding employee data protection ...
The West Virginia Ethics Commission issued a new Advisory Opinion on March 7, 2019, which is going to impact the way some teachers arrange for substitutes. The opinion sought was whether it is a violation of the Ethics Act for teachers to prearrange a relative to substitute teach in their absence or place relatives on a preferred list of substitutes for their classrooms ...
Special allowances under the EPF Act need to be special On February 28, 2019, the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark order on whether special allowances fall within the scope and meaning of “basic wages” under the Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (the “EPF Act”) ...
Sponsored wellness plans that include incentives to employees who voluntarily disclose personal health information as part of disability-related inquiries or medical examinations are in legal limbo after the EEOC removed the underlying rules from the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (“GINA”) ...
On March 4, 2019, the California Supreme Court ruled in Cal Fire Local 2881 et. al. v. California Public Employees' Retirement System that public retirement system members do not have a vested right to purchase "airtime" – nonqualified service credit unrelated to public service ...
Cloud computing and offshoring of data is no longer a taboo among banks. It is becoming a necessity and is the current definitive trend. However, the South African Reserve Bank (“SARB”) has issued a directive and guidance note detailing items banks must consider when electing to adopt cloud computing as a service or any offshoring of data ...
The implementation of cybercrime legislation is a pressing issue given that South Africa has one of the highest numbers of cybercrime victims in the world. In addition, a number of unsuspecting individuals and organisations alike fell prey to the scourge of cyber scams which seemed to spike quite rapidly in the past year. The Cybercrime Bill was adopted by the Portfolio Committee for Justice and Correctional Services in November 2018 and sent to the National Assembly for debate ...
The pervasiveness of the Internet of Things has spawned a recent fear that the devices are listening to the conversations of their users. For instance, the My Friend Cayla doll talks to children and answers their questions by connecting to the internet and using a combination of voice recognition software and Google searches to provide these responses ...
Gone are the days when a helicopter had to be hired to secure fantastic shots of a neighbourhood or local stadium in anticipation of a major public or private event. Drones have ushered in a new kind of photography and can be used in many instances and applications even in traditional industries like agriculture or last mile logistics. One of the primary functions of using drones is to capture, store and transmit data ...
In the recent matter ofVodacom & others v the National Association of South African Workers and 1 other, which was handed down on 4 March 2019, the South African Labour Court grappled with the issue of its jurisdiction to grant interdictory relief against a trade union where the entity seeking the relief is not the employer of the trade union’s members. The Labour Court also dealt with the rights of unregistered trade unions ...
Digital rights management (“DRM”) refers to the methods used by content owners to protect their digital content. A number of methods can be used to control and restrict access and usage of digital material. Popular DRM mechanisms include password protecting a digital file/content, as well as platform DRM, which is typically deployed by online streaming platforms and electronic databases to restrict access to content that users are required to pay for ...
If an employer suspects an employee of committing an act of misconduct, it is possible that the employer will want to place that employee on what is usually referred to as a “precautionary suspension”. The question that arises is whether the employer must give the employee a chance to make representations on why he or she should not to be suspended, prior to a decision being taken in this regard ...
It is no surprise that in this digital age, social media is more than a platform to connect with old school friends, share experiences or watch funny videos. Businesses have realised the value in leveraging social media platforms so as to directly connect with and market themselves and their businesses to existing and potential customers. Social media platforms allow businesses to increase their brand awareness and entrench themselves with their clients and secure their loyalty ...
On March 7, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a rule that would significantly change the pay standards for overtime exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Since 2004, the minimum salary necessary to qualify for an administrative, executive, or professional exemption under the FLSA has been $455 per week ($23,660 per year). Under the proposed rule, this minimum would increase to $679 per week ($35,308 per year) ...
The much awaited revised new regulations governing who qualifies for the FLSA white collar exemption has finally been revealed by the Department of Labor. It did so on March 8 by publishing anNPRM(“Notice of Proposed Rule Making”). In December of 2016, a Texas federal court entered a nationwide injunction halting the implementation of new regulations which would have dramatically increased the salary threshold for exempting most white collar employees from overtime ...
The fallout from the Illinois Supreme Court’s January 25, 2019, opinion in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 19 IL 12316, continues.Rosenbach settled the dispute of who qualifies as an “aggrieved person” under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), and in doing so opened the floodgates for this litigation to proliferate ...
On January 19, 2019, federal Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore of the Northern District of California denied the Government’s application for a search warrant that sought: “all digital devices” present at a California residence; (Order at 3), and “any individual present at the time of the search to press a finger (including thumb) or utilize other biometric features…for the purposes of unlocking the digital devices found in order to permit a search of
Corporations and governments are ferreting out and squirreling away voluminous, detailed and private information about each and every one of us – and they are not afraid to use it. Should we be worried? Singapore’s Health Minister recently revealed that confidential details of 14,200 HIV-positive people, stolen from a government public health database, had been leaked online by a disgruntled US citizen who had been in a romantic relationship with a local doctor ...
We would like to inform you of the new rules of audits/inspections of companies processing personal data approved by the Decree of the Russian Government dated February 13, 2019 No. 146 «On Approving the Rules on Arranging and Exercising Control over Compliance of Personal Data Processing» («Decree»). The Russian Data Protection Authority (DPA) is entitled to investigate companies’ compliance with data protection laws ...
