Privacy Issues in the Community College Workplace

be reviewed by the human resources director, personnel officer, or some other high-level manager. The review official should make sure that the reference is supported by documentation, factual, and consistent with other reference responses.  Provide information in writing. While some agencies choose to provide verbal responses, written responses are preferable because they create a clear record of the information provided and help prevent impromptu, emotional outbursts from former supervisors.

 Apply the policy equally to all current and former employees.

 Maintain a confidential response process. The only individuals who should discuss and review the agency’s reference are those who draft it.

 Maintain copies of the waiver, written questions, and the agency’s responses.

Following a comprehensive policy such as this will help the agency avoid accusations of favoritism, prevent supervisors from drafting emotional, inaccurate or unsupportable references, and preserve the agency’s legal defenses. If an employer does intend to submit fingerprints to the State to obtain a criminal background check, it should use the Department of Justice’s Live Scan program. This program enables the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to receive electronically scanned fingerprints and perform records checks. However, the DOJ imposes strict confidentiality requirements and warns employers not to release the results of the criminal background checks. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case held that no invasion of privacy tort claim was stated where an employer deceived a credit bureau as to its purpose for requesting two credit reports about a job applicant who was bankrupt. The employer and credit bureau’s methods were not unreasonably intrusive, the information was used to make a hiring decision, and it was not published or disseminated. 42 The process by which an agency requests and obtains credit information from job applicants must be structured with standards, guidelines, definitions and limitations precisely indicating the job-related reason for requesting the information. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that in the absence of such safeguards, “[t]he risk that an infringement of an important constitutionally protected right might be justified on the basis of individual bias and disapproval of the protected conduct is too great. The very purpose of constitutional protection of individual liberties is to prevent such majoritarian or capricious coercion.” 43

Privacy Issues in the Community College Workplace ©2019 (c) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 20