Privacy Rights

Can an employer legally share their employees' personal information, meaning resume information, with an outside company without the employee's permission?

Calico696 Calico696
Oct '14

Hope this helps: http://career-advice.monster.com/job-search/getting-started/What-Can-Employers-Legally-Say/article.aspx

theolgamer theolgamer
Oct '14

Thanks for the link.

However, I was referring to a current employer and information from a personnel file such as previous employment, education etc. Would they be able to legally give that information to another business which is an unrelated entity?

Calico696 Calico696
Oct '14

Does your company have an Employee Handbook that you can reference? Is your company considering outsourcing your department/function? This happened to me about nine years ago. My position was being outsourced and based on my resume and employee file information I was offered the opportunity to continue my position/function with the new company. I was terminated from Company A on a Friday afternoon and rehired by Company B on Monday morning. The only thing that really changed was who generated my pay check.

NJKID1010 NJKID1010
Oct '14

Legally? I don't see why not. Someone gave it to them without any contractual "non-disclosure" language attached, correct?

I'm not sure WHY they would give it to someone else, but I don't know of any law that would prohibit them from doing so.

For instance, my firm frequently uses my CV information, including education and previous work experience in addition to work experience with the current firm when filling out RFPs for various jobs without asking me for permission. Not sure if that's a similar situation to what you're talking about.

ianimal ianimal
Oct '14

If you need a legal opinion, you really need to ask that of a lawyer. However, even though the answer could well be yes, it's not a particularly ethical thing unless given permission. If word of that spread, I would expect the number of future candidates to go down accordingly. I would also expect somewhere along the line some employee would seek legal recourse if it harmed them in some way. Best to get a legal opinion.


ianimal - As a contractor at one time, I have the same experience of what the employer needed to provide to others for my work at their clients. My experience is that it was done with information I willingly provided, and for my benefit of getting work. Ethically they also always informed me where they wanted to use me and we worked together on how to close the business. I think that's a lot different than passing along information without agreement and without the understand it's for mutual benefit.


No they can NOT share your information unless you signed a form allowing them to share with a third party.

Nosila Nosila
Oct '14

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the responses.

Calico696 Calico696
Oct '14

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