Rojgar Job News

“Technology is a wonderful thing but it’s scary when it’s weaponized against you.” The first sign that my wife’s identity and my own were under attack came innocently enough. It was an e-mail alert that we get from time to time from Comcast, so innocent that I almost ignored it.  But it said our password had been changed.  When we tried to log-in to download e-mail, the system indicated the password was incorrect. “That’s weird”, we thought. I mean, we have two factor authentication on it so that if someone DOES try to change the password, shouldn’t they need a code? So I called Comcast and was assured repeated that our password wasn’t changed and our account was not compromised. They said it was a phishing exercise and the e-mails were fake too. As for the account access, they said that someone may have just tried to access it but they were unsuccessful. Comcast easily reset the password for me and since two factor a...

A few weeks back, I did a post about having our personal data hacked. What if the hacker was you? Yes you — the attorney, the employer, or someone else who has confidential information. I was recently reviewing the online court file of an employment case in federal court for a recent blog post.  It’s available for anyone to see. (You might be asking, Why ? Because it’s always interesting to see other filings and the way cases turn out. Ok, it’s always interesting TO ME at least ….). In looking over some of the court-filed documents, I came across the college transcript of the employee/plaintiff.  It was filed by the attorney as evidence in the case. Some newer transcripts don’t have some confidential information. But this college transcript was old school: It still contained the Social Security number of the employee AND his date of birth. And just like that, the attorney has opened up the employee to hacking. In case you are wondering, yes...

With a weekend of football championships behind us, this post tackles the privacy developments that employers here in Connecticut need to run down.  Indeed, while I could just pass off two recent posts from my colleagues, it’s worth going through a progression of options. One development is for the U.S. “ patriots” , while another one lets you fly like an eagle to Europe to understand the implications that an EU regulation can have on US employers. Since my beloved New York football giants were out of it since week one, I’m going to just quarterback what you need to know and, for the sake of everyone, put the football puns on the sideline for the rest of the post. First up, the Connecticut Supreme Court last week recognized a private right of action that patients have against their doctors for unauthorized disclosure of confidential information obtained in the course of that relationship.”  My colleagues in the Health Law group have a deta...

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to the IASA Northeastern Conference on a favorite topic of mine of late — Privacy and Data Breaches in the workplace. Of course, that sounds kinda of boring. So my presentation is actually called the title of this post: “The Rise of Smartphone Fueled, Social Media Addicted Workplace Zombies.” Much catchier right? Speaking before the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association (IASA) Northeastern Chapter at their 54th Annual Regional Conference was great fun though. In my talk, I highlighted items like Business E-mail Compromise scams, Ransomware, and yes, even workplace zombies. What do I mean by that? Well, too many of us (including me at times) stare at our phones and sometimes respond to e-mails or click without thinking.  (Think Before You Click would make the name of a good book; fortunately, I wrote a chapter in that very book a while back.) Protecting workplace data IS about thinking. It’s about protecting ...

Do you remember when the Target store data breach made news? This was not that long ago, and yet, five years later we’ve arguably become immune to the news. Take Facebook’s latest snafu — 50 million accounts compromised.  And yet, it hardly made headlines for a 24 hour period. Heck, even the U.S. State Department has had personal information about its employees breached in the last month — though “only” one percent may have been affected – so…yawn. Have we become that immune to such breaches at this point?  Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean that employers can let their guard down. Indeed, I would argue that new laws and regulations (including one in California) are making the job of employers even more challenging. I’ll be talking about all of this at my firm’s upcoming Labor & Employment Seminar later this month with my colleague Ashley Marshall.  It’s scheduled for October 25th at the Hartford Mar...

Now that Thanksgiving is in the past, it’s time to look forward to the future. Well, not before getting a recap of everything that transpired in employment law in the last year. Or at least everything that we can fit in an hour long seminar. The webinar that broke attendance records last year is back again on December 4, 2018 at noon ET. This year, five employment law bloggers are presenting the “Best-Ever Year-End Employment Law Review that Five Employment Law Bloggers Have Ever Presented” webinar.  Registration is just $25 and it’s eligible for CLE/SHRM/HRCI credit. All that is needed is to sign up here.  The presenters this year are: Robin Shea, Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete Kate Bischoff, tHRive Law & Consulting Jon Hyman, Meyers Roman Eric Meyer, FisherBroyles Jeff Nowak, Franczek Radelet Daniel Schwartz, Shipman & Goodwin Among the topics that you can surely expect to hear about: #MeToo, LGBT discrim...

Has it really been a dozen years? Yes, it was 12 years ago today that I clicked “Publish” and put up my Welcome message to the Connecticut Employment Law Blog. At the time, I was the first platform to discuss employment law issues with a focus on Connecticut. Now, it seems like every lawfirm has taken its newsletters and slapped a “blog” label on it and voila! Lots of employment law blogs. What’s interesting about having a blog for so long though is that you really do start to build up a perspective that’s hard to see on the day-to-day frontlines.  My earlier posts had no mention of the impact that social media was having in the workplace because, well, it wasn’t having any.   Twitter had just launched the year before and no one was using smartphones to access the internet either. And data privacy? Fight for $15? Paid FMLA? All concepts really in the 2010s. It is pretty remarkable how much has shifted over time.  Heck, we...

As I noted last week, I’l be talking at CBIA’s Employment Law Conference on the topic of “Artificial Intelligence & Analytics for HR: Recruiting, Retention & Engagement” next month. Joining me on the panel is Doug Smith, the SVP Client Delivery at Tallan, which has offices in the Greater Hartford area.  I thought it might be enlightening to ask Doug a few questions about AI and Analytics in the Workplace before our talk. He was gracious enough to humor me with answers to my questions. Really looking forward to our discussion in two weeks.  In any event, here’s a return of my ongoing Five, Six Questions Series…. Is there really a place for data analytics in HR? Definitely.  It has the most impact in larger companies, but even the smaller companies can gain insight by tracking and analyzing their data.  It’s amazing what you can find when you start to really look. Fair enough. What are the opportunities? There ar...

Have you ever walked into a store, only to have your phone alert you to deals that the store was having? How did it know? Turns out many phones have Bluetooth Low Energry or BLE, for short.  This technology transmits information like a beacon to things like stores or other physical places, but also to other phones. Now imagine that your phone could alert other phones that are nearby that the user of the phone had a confirmed diagnosis for COVID-19.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? That’s the premise of a new article by Christopher Luise, Co-CEO at Adnet Technologies, LLC here in Connecticut that I was able to co-write with him. The ability to do contact tracing digitally — that is, identify people who are carrying infectious diseases and the people they may have exposed — is something being seriously explored by several technology companies in the United States. It is already being implemented in Australia and Singapore, to name a few. For employers, the...