While there has been a good deal of attention on consumer data and the rights of consumers to know what data is being collected about them and how it is being used, there has been less focus on the data that employers collect on employees. With the covid19 pandemic placing increased pressure on the collection of health status and other employee data, the opportunity to protect such data seems to be receding according to a report on the topic by Issie Lapowsky in Protocol.
Worker rights to privacy were exempted from consideration until 2021 under the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act. As a result workers have no clear expectations about what data employers can collect and what they might do with such data. In addition to the new interest in health status, the pandemic has sent many workers home and generated increased interest in monitoring their activities at least for some employers. Although the virus has slowed efforts to develop protections for employee privacy in the short term, perhaps it will generate action to guard their privacy in the longer term.
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