Wither 'Big Brother'? B.C. Privacy Commissioner Reins-in Government of British Columbia Criminal Record Checks
By Privacy and Cybersecurity Group
In keeping with her stance on overly-invasive employee background checks, British Columbia's Information and Privacy Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, has issued her findings and recommendations with respect to the B.C. Government's policies, as an employer, for employee criminal record checks.
Finding that the government's polices resulted in the unnecessary or overbroad collection of personal information, the Commissioner issued a number of recommendations aimed at limiting the amount of data collected by the provincial government, as well as the instances in which collection would be justified. The report also contains 16 recommendations for "Best Practices for Public Sector Record Checks".
A "Best Practices" for private sector employers will be released at a later date.
The Privacy Commissioner's July 25, 2012 Report can be accessed at: http://www.oipc.bc.ca/orders/investigation_reports/InvestigationReportF12-03.pdf
The Privacy Commissioner's guidelines on social media background checks can be accessed at:http://www.oipc.bc.ca/pdfs/private/guidelines-socialmediabackgroundchecks.pdf
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