California Imposes New Rules and Restrictions on Employer Investigations

Overview: Article refers that California recently enacted amendments to its Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act , Civil Code Section 1786 et seq. ("ICRA") which impose significant new obligations on employers while at the same time limiting in important ways their ability to investigate workplace misconduct, such as sex harassment. The intended design of the 2001 amendments to ICRA, which were effective January 1, 2002, was to protect consumers from identity theft. The law, however, goes much further and employers have good reason to be concerned that some of their practices or procedures would trigger the notice, inspection, verification and information dissemination requirements/restrictions of the ICRA due to its expanded definitions of "investigative consumer report agencies" and "investigative consumer reports." More importantly, a significant amendment to ICRA now requires any persons, including employers, who conduct their own investigations about someone's character, general reputation, personal characteristics or mode of living for hiring, promotion, reassignment or retention purposes, to disclose information to the subject of the investigation at either the time of an investigative meeting, interview, or within seven days of obtaining information, whichever is earlier.

(Is this item miscategorized? Does it need more tags? Let us know.)

Format: HTML | Date: Apr 2002 | Pages: 1