PROTECTIONS FOR EMPLOYEE PERSONNEL FILES

The 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) changed the consumer data collection rules, allowing consumers to know about and request deletion of data that businesses collect about them, among other things.  The CCPA’s broad language, however, arguably encompasses employees and job applicants, which means employees, upon request, could potentially have information from their personnel files deleted under the CCPA.

AB 25 exempts from the CCPA employee data, i.e., information collected and used within the context of a person’s employment or application for employment.  This exemption is good for only one year.

Importantly, employers subject to the CCPA must still comply with the act’s requirement to disclose, at or before the time of collection, the categories of personal information collected about an applicant or employee and the purposes for which the information will be used.