Data Protection Issue

Daisy Jones

Registered User
Messages
48
A senior manager has shared details of staff wages in an e-mail and all staff are not aware of this. Have their rights been breached?
 
How widely was the email shared? Did anyone receive it who shouldn't have?
If he's shared it with someone in the finance department, no biggie. If it's gone to half the company, then there's a major issue.
 
It was shared with a group of managers but not all of them are in finance and it details the wages of many staff who are unaware this information has been shared. I have nothing to do with payroll but now have the details of colleagues income, surely that is a breach? Thank you Seagull for your reply.
 
It was shared with a group of managers but not all of them are in finance and it details the wages of many staff who are unaware this information has been shared. I have nothing to do with payroll but now have the details of colleagues income, surely that is a breach? Thank you Seagull for your reply.

Managers (even those outside of finance) would need wage costs if these managers were responsible for their budgets which included the wage costs of those who they are responsible for. However only the wage costs of staff under each individual manager should be shared with that manager.

Managers should hold all information confidential if it is released in error (this responsibility is part of their role).

Non manager staff outside of the finance area and HR area should not see any other staffs remuneration package. All finance and HR staff have a professional responsibility to keep this type of information confidential irrespective of their position in the respective depts.
 
I'm curious if anybody has a view on the legalities of something like this? It certainly isn't good business practice to share salary information widely, but I wonder is it actually enshrined in a law somewhere, to answer the OP's query as to whether somebodies rights have been breached.

Working in IT I know it's very common for IT staff to potentially have access to payroll information if they wanted to look, and while you might get sacked for doing it, I think if there was a law there it would be treated more seriously.
 
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