Employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the personal information on their workplace computers, even if that expectation can be significantly diminished with effective workplace policies and practices. However, whether such reasonable expectations extend to workplace computer evidence admitted in a criminal proceeding was addressed in last Friday’s highly anticipated Supreme Court of Canada
Terms of Service and Employee Social Media Passwords
Over the last couple of months, there has been an interesting debate in Canada and the US about whether an employer can ask for a social media password. For some of the highlights of the conversation in Ontario, see:
- Toronto Star article on March 20, 2012;
- Dan Michaluk at All About Information;
- Andrew Langille’s
New Ontario Social Media Reference Check Guidelines
Last Thursday, the Ontario Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner released its new guide for online reference checks. In the face of the recent debates about whether an employer can request personal social media passwords during job interviews, the release of this document is quite timely.
The guideline is entitled, Reference Check: Is Your
New Tort of Privacy in Ontario
As of today, individuals can now sue for the tort of privacy in Ontario. (Thanks to Professor Doorey for the heads up in a tweet and blog post this afternoon).
The new tort is based on the following statement:
One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the seclusion of another or his or her
Privacy in the Workplace 101
Privacy in the workplace is an area that invites a broad range of views and perspectives. Whether the information relates to data on an electronic device such as an employer-provided computer or blackberry, or personal employee information such as bank account information for pay cheque deposits, we all expect some degree of privacy in the