Special Promotional Feature

Managing personal information in the electronic age can be a tricky minefield to navigate.

As we all know, people love to post comments and pictures on Facebook, but can employers use those comments and pictures to discipline employees?

Another potential hazard is HR outsourcing.  Although quite popular with some companies, organizations must ensure they have proper policies in place to ensure that personal information collected, used, disclosed, and retained by outside service providers complies with the Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”).  For example, do you need to obtain the consent of current employees before sending their medical records to service providers?

These tricky questions and more will be answered at the 2011 “PIPA Conference – Privacy: It’s Your Business” which will be held on October 13th & 14th, 2011 at the beautiful Coal Coast Harbour Hotel in downtown Vancouver BC. The conference has multiple sessions which will discuss when it is and when it is not appropriate for employers to collect and use personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook.

The focus this year is on practical, real-world problems and solutions.  This forum offers an excellent opportunity to hear from privacy regulators, stakeholders and business experts from around the globe about managing personal information in the electronic age. The conference will discuss many issues important to HR professionals such as social networking sites.

Still think you have heard it all? Consider these true privacy scenarios taken from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Alberta and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:

• A hair salon required employees who miss work to disclose at staff meetings the reason for their absence when they returned to work.  If an employee was sick, they had to detail the nature of their illness.  All the staff members then held a vote to decide by majority if the reason for the absence was acceptable or not.
• A woman was denied a civilian telecommunications officer position after refusing to answer certain questions posed on a medical history questionnaire she was asked to complete during the recruitment process.  The questions included:
• Do you have monthly menstrual periods?
• What was the date of your last period?
• Are your menstrual periods painful?
• When was your last Pap smear test?
• How many times, including abortion and miscarriage have you been pregnant?

The 2011 PIPA Conference:  Privacy, It’s Your Business is a one-of-a-kind learning opportunity that is ideal for businesses and non-profit organizations, whether your organization has built a detailed compliance program, is in the midst of implementing its strategy, or just getting started.  The 2011 PIPA Conference provides organizations across British Columbia and Alberta the opportunity to enhance their privacy compliance programs by offering an exciting mix of case studies, plenary lectures and expert-led sessions.  To learn more please visit the conference website at http://www.privacyconference2011.ca/index.php.

BC HRMA members get 10% off using promo code: BCHRMA2011.