Howard Levitt and Muneeza Sheikh: Babcock incident a reminder that employees' personal lives should stay that way

Are employees entitled to privacy? How much? What rights to privacy do employees have on? Can employers ask any personal questions? What happens if the employee refuses to answer them?

But the explanation has sparked discussions around positional power, and its misuse — and abuse — in the workplace. In this context, without a doubt, Babcock was in a position of power in relation to the players he coached. The relationship was no different than that of senior level management asking personal questions of their subordinates.What an employee does in their private life should remain private — or, at least, private-ish.

While privacy legislation in Canada has been murky for years, this much is clear: when employers ask employees questions that may make them uncomfortable, those same employees are likely to choke down any discomfort and answer anyway. Most employers also know through years of de-facto human rights education, that asking personal questions about someone’s family status, race, age, ethnicity could lead to a breach of an employee’s rights under Human Rights legislation. In short, if you as an employer learn something about an employee under an enumerated ground, and use it against them, you have discriminated against them.

The blunder however does not only contain lessons for employers; there are important ones for employees as well. It is best to ensure that your work-owned device do not contain information that you wish to keep private from your employer. While recent legislation in Ontario now places a burden on employers to disclose that they are monitoring workplace devices, they are still free to monitor as they see operationally fit.

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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