Coronavirus and data protection: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provides advice on taking employees’ temperatures.
“Before the COVID-19 crisis, employers could check workers’ body temperatures only in limited circumstances without violating a federal disability law.”
Per the Employment Opportunity Commission during the pandemic employers can:
- check temperature
- bar employees with elevated temperatures from entering the workplace.
- bar employees who refuse to answer questions about whether they have COVID-19, or symptoms of the disease, from the workplace but recommends asking the employee why they are refusing
Employers should:
- store private medical information, like a recorded body temperature, in a file separate from an employee’s standard personnel file and treat it as confidential information