With the Trump administration settled into the White House and honing in on its one-year anniversary, we have begun to see an expected shift from a heavily administrated workplace to a more hands off, employer-friendly regulatory environment. It is expected that this trend will continue in 2018. This article explores current issues that employers will likely face in the workplace this year.

Cybersecurity Employment Law

Cybersecurity and privacy issues have become issues of concern for all businesses. In 2017, we saw an increase in both external and internal cyberattacks and threats upon data privacy.  There is a significant intersection between cybersecurity and employment law given that employees and business leaders alike have access to proprietary information as well as confidential data. The news has already begun to highlight cases where disgruntled executives depart and expose their former company to privacy attacks. Also, innocent actions of an employee, i.e., opening a suspicious email which installs a virus on the company’s system can create not only and IT nightmare, but can carry legal implications if any protected data is compromised. In 2018, there will be an increased focus upon cybersecurity and data privacy in both legislation and litigation. Employers should learn how to—and why to—assess their current cyberpreparedness (both internally against careless use of email, Internet, and electronic data and equipment, rogue employees and externally against cybercriminals). Only by realizing the importance and necessity of maintaining, reviewing and constantly updating policies, procedures, and training will a business be able to face any cyber-related issue without delay or major institutional damage.

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