Divulging employee personal information?

Question

If a person is in a supervisory position and they are told (In confidence), ie. an employee has a dr appt for a time other then that in which they are on the clock--their own personal time, and has no baring on their job, is it the supervisors responsibility to divulge this information to the company or is it an invasion of privacy on the employee by the supervisor? If this information was not to be made public to the employer and the employer forces the supervisor to divulge this information, who is responsible? Is this considered an invasion of privacy? Is the supervisor responsible for reporting an employees dr appt to the company in the event that down the road it could interfere with their employment (2 months)? Can the supervisor be held accountable for disclosing personal infomation that I tell them in confidence?

Answer 1

By disclosing the information to a supervisor it is their responsibility to convey the information to their supervisor if it has any possibilty of adversely affecting job performance. Anything you divulge to the supervisor, is in effect, divulging it to the employer.

Answer 2

Terminal health issues are protected. If you were seeing a Dr. for HIV treatments, the employer would be in violation. I'm not sure what exact law applies but there is a confidentiality point that cannot be crossed. If it is a less serious health issue, you are in error, not them.



Problem is if you willingly told the supervisor. Then you might have blown your own case. That means you did not provide info under duress.



If your supervisor threatened to fire you if you did not tell, that kind of thing would NOT be tolerated and that supervisor could face severe consequences for divulging such info gotten by ill means.



Bottom line: NEVER tell what is none of their business. Do not volunteer info. Protect your own self or you can ruin your own employment chances.

Answer 3

If you divulge something to a supervisor, you do so willingly. The supervisor protects the interests of the company. There is no invasion of your privacy because you volunteered the information. The supervisor should have told you that your information would not be held confidential.

Answer 4

If the appointment was not during work hours and was not related to work then you willingly divulged information to the supervisor -- seems to me that you gave up information that had nothing to do with your job and could be construed as casual conversation with the supervisor.



What would you say anything about it in the first place?

Answer 5

Doesn't sound like invasion of privacy to me. From my understanding, Invasion of privacy is when someone gets personal information 1) without your consent, for something that is 2) gernally expected to be private. For example, a survelliance camera in a parking versus a survelliance camera in the bathroom. You have no expectation for privacy in a public area like a parking lot, but you do in a bathroom.

Also, If i understood you correctly, you provided the information to your supervisor freely, without cohersion. This implies you consented.

Answer 6

Employee to employee there is nothing that can be done. But if it had been the employer then it would of been different. Best thing to do as and employee with a major medication condition is to keep it to yourself. Do not trust anyone that you work with, more then likely these people are not trustworthy.

Answer 7

personal information is supposed to stay confidencial. it can be, depending on the nature of it, against the law.