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What happens to personal information your employer has, after you leave the company?
These days, employers have a host of information on employees, including medical and health insurance records, information in pension and 401(k) plans and bank account numbers from direct deposit.
Most companies keep this information long after an employee’s termination to comply with various federal regulations, said Charles Knapp, a partner at the law firm Faegre & Benson LLP in Minneapolis.
For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination, requires a company to retain employment application records for two years after an employee leaves. As a rule, companies typically keep personnel and employee benefit files between one and five years and payroll records for three years, Knapp said.
As for the destruction of these files, there is no federal law that regulates how and when an employer should delete this information, said Don Harris, president of consultant HR Privacy Solutions Ltd. in Delhi, N.Y.
Record-keeping and disposal practices vary widely from employer to employer. The more responsible companies will archive the information in backup files that are not easily accessible. Others, though, may keep it in current files, which could be susceptible to hacking.
When the employer gets rid of the information, all paper documents should be shredded or burned and electronic files, destroyed.
Smaller businesses or those facing bankruptcy pose the greatest risks, Harris said. They often don’t follow any specific procedures and many throw these documents out like regular garbage, available to anyone snooping through the trash.
Various states require companies to report to employees if its employee data is breached, but there is no comparable federal law regarding compromised personal data.
“I think responsible employers are trying to move toward keeping data for shorter time,” Harris said. “But records management is never at the top of anyone’s lists.”
To protect yourself when you leave an employer, Kevin Joerling, a certified records manager at the trade group ARMA International, recommends asking your human resources department about its record-keeping and disposal process. The department should be able to answer the following questions:
• How long are you going to keep the records?
• Who will have access to those records?
• How will these records be deleted, both electronic files and hard copies?
“If you don’t get straight answers, continue to ratchet up to higher levels of the organization until you get the information,” Joerling said. “There should be no secrets on that information.”
