Employee data actually also conserved as a personal data which is why, it is need to be protected by GDPR and human resources department. However, you should also make sure that the employee also works together to protect their own data which help to prevent breach.
What is Data Protection for Employee?
As company you have rights to collect, store, request and use various data you get from the employee. The data can include identifying information, employee’s performance and many other.
However, it is important to remember that you need to do data protection in order to keep the personal information of your worker safe. This is in accordance with GDPR that regulate data protection for companies which applies not only to client data but also to employee data.
You can do this by using various platforms, tools and protection policies that can help to secure the data. The data protection itself should cover various data which stored along the employee’s working cycle.
In case you want to keep the personal information that you get from unsuccessful candidate to see if there are future job opportunities that might be suitable for then, then you need to ask permission from the candidate first.
If you need to keep data on employee that does not work for you anymore for compliance or tax purpose then you need to make sure that all of those data are securely kept. Furthermore, you need to make sure that the data is minimized and only store what is needed for the purpose.
Read more What Is GDPR: A Comprehensive Guide To Data Protection
Learn to Protect Employee Data According to GDPR and Human Resources Best Practice
It is the company’s priority to follow local laws as well as international laws on data protection. But it is something that hard to do since the regulations are varied although they are all have some similarity. That is why, it is better to follow GDPR and human resources best practice that you can use to protect employee data. It can also help to safeguard the company from any legal risk.
State the reason of data collecting
GDPR stated that you need to tell the employee about the data that your company collect, how the data will be used and process by the company as well as the reason why your company need the data.
HR department might need to get certain employee data which needed for administrative purpose. However, you need to ask whether such data is really needed or not.
To minimize the risk, it is important for you to only collect employee data that absolutely necessary for the company to operate. So, do not collect and store what you do not need since it can lead to security and legal risk.
Use the best system and software
Most company these days already use cloud-based system to collect, store and process data. Online system does come with a lot of advance especially for companies with larger scale.
However, it is important for you to make sure that you use the best system and software to collect, store and process the data. Find out if the system that you use already fulfill the industry standard.
If you use third party service for the cloud system and software then it is important to research about their security system too. Make sure that the third-party service that you use also comply with GDPR and human resources regulation.
Apply access control, security policies and encryption
To further protect the employee data, you need to apply various security policies such as access control. That way, you can restrict access on the employee data, document and record to only authorized personal that really need to use the data.
It is also important to have security policies that can help to reduce the security risk as needed by GDPR and human resources. For example, you need to make sure that all of the device used in your company have strong password. You also need to have policies that required the password to be update regularly.
To further reduce data breach risk, you also need to encrypt all of the data that you collect, store and process on the cloud. If you use third party service then they usually already have encryption technologies applied to their system.
But you need to make sure that the encryption algorithm they use already fulfill industry standard. Furthermore, you also need to make sure that the encryption is applied when moving data inside and outside the system.
Asking consent and be transparent
Although the company also have rights to collect personal data from the employee, but it is better that you get consent to collect, store and process data. You also need to be transparent and tell the employee about the reason why the data is needed and how you will use the data. This transparency will make your employee trust the company more as they can understand how and why their data is needed.
Creating policy to protect employee data
It is important for your company to have policy that can help to protect employee data. There are a few policies that you can apply on the company to help with this purpose.
First is the privacy policy which can help to outline the process on how you will handle employee data.
For example, you can help to have policy that stated that the company will not share personal data unless it is necessary. You also need to explain the data that you need to process payrolls, the benefits as well as other things needed to do your business. This policy actually also helpful for the employee themselves since they will know their obligation from the policy.
Second GDPR and human resources policy that you can use is data protection policy which is actually internal document that can be used by your company. Inside you need to put the method that employee needs to do to help protecting the employee data.
This policy also help employee to understand that their data is being protect. You also need to create policies that keep employee’s sensitive data to be label as private.
Perform periodic update on employee data
It is important to remove any outdated and unnecessary data of your company’s databased. If breach happened and you still have those outdated data it will show that your company does not really care about the employee record. Furthermore, keeping unnecessary data also increase security risk for your employee.
So, it is important to do regular audits for the database to update the employee data sored in the system. Do not forget to remove old employee that does not work in the company anymore. So, it is also advisable to have policy to determine how long the employee data is kept.
Minimized data sharing
There is some instance where you might need to share employee data to process your business. For example, to send payroll or financial data to tax agency or accountant. But to do it, you need to make sure that the company you working for also have good data protection as required by GDPR and human resources regulation.
It is also important to minimize the data shared and only share as minimum as possible data that required to do the process. That way it can help to minimize the risk.
Review internal data sharing
You also need to review about data sharing that is done internally especially for the employee data. Especially since you are still liable when the data shared is misused. For example, when you send gift or holiday cards to employee, there are chances that you will also share their contact information and address which can be a problem if it is misused. That is why, it is better to use secure platform when sending anything so greetings and card can be done without sharing contact information.
Give employee security training
Breaches can happen because of human which is why it is important to train your employee so they can use data in secure manner. Create GDPR and human resources guides that can be access by all employee.
Give periodic training and test to make sure that your employee now how to treat data with secure manner. You also need to have policy where you state the best practice on handing personal data. Remember that the policy should also be update regularly to keep up with the changes in regulation.
Plan for the worse
Even if you already have all of those protection but you still need to plan for the worse. You need to have method that you can use to handle data breaches. It is also important to notify authorized supervisor when the breach happen since GDPR have 72hours time limit. Then you also need to notify your employee so they can be aware and also protect themselves.
Conclusion
Breaches on employee data is dangerous not only for the employee but also for the company itself. It can disrupt company’s operation and also harm the reputation. Thus, it is important to protect the data to comply with GDPR and human resources regulation. You can follow the best practice that can help to protect the employee data.
Description: Discover the best practices for protecting employee data in accordance with GDPR regulations. Learn about data encryption, access controls, and more.
Tags: GDPR and human resources, GDPR and human resources best practice, GDPR and human resources regulation, GDPR and human resources rules, GDPR and human resources compliance,