New York, October 9, 2007 –  Privacy lawyers at Morrison & Foerster, led by practice head Miriam Wugmeister, have written a treatise: ‘Employee Privacy: Guide to U.S. and International Law.’  Written from the perspective of the practitioner, the book is easy to use and quickly accessible, and has been published in two versions by A S Pratt & Sons and Thompson Publishing.  

Any company with employees in more than one country faces the task of complying with a myriad of laws regulating the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information.  Failure to address privacy and data security issues may mean that companies find themselves subject to fines and scrutiny by data protection regulators, and the object of negative publicity.

Understanding the enormous obligation placed on staff with responsibility for HR and privacy matters, the book's authors have organized the content in the most user-friendly way possible for the practitioner.  Rather than taking a country-by-country approach, or by analyzing individual laws, the book is structured by topic, dealing on a global basis and reflecting the laws in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America with issues such as:

• Recruiting
• Conducting workplace investigations
• Controlling employee behavior (on and off work)
• Disclosing personnel and medical records
• Monitoring employee use of electronic technologies
• Background check and investigations
• Procedures to prevent identity theft
• Guidance on how to control Internet use to protect trade secrets and company reputation

Where relevant, chapters contain checklists and best practice guides, while the appendices reproduce the critical privacy laws in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

‘Employee Privacy: Guide to U.S. and International Law’ has been written by a team of twenty lawyers in the Privacy and Data Security Practice Group at Morrison & Foerster.  The scope of the text underlines the firm's pre-eminence in this area, and its lawyers' unrivaled understanding of cross-border issues relating to HR and privacy matters.

For more information about the book please see the publishers’ websites:

http://www.thompson.com/public/offerpage.jsp?promo=DOOR07WP&priority=WEB27152
http://www.aspratt.com/store/W75.php