If your business continues to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have implemented screening procedures to identify sick employees who should not be working. Health information that you collect from your employees in this context needs to be kept confidential, and to the extent that you keep records of these screenings, you must ensure that the information is kept separate from the employee’s personnel record.
Health information about employees is generally protected by a number of privacy laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which enforces workplace civil rights laws, including the ADA and GINA, recently issued some FAQs addressing COVID-19 confidentiality issues. Key points in this guidance are:
We’re here to help! If you need assistance with privacy issues, please contact Norbert Kugele, Kelly Hollingsworth, Alexandra Chitwood, Lexi Woods or any other member of Warner’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Practice Group.
