When private information is made public
A. This sounds like pretty serious stuff and although you are not legally obliged to do anything, ethically, you should alert your employer to this situation as soon as possible. What further recourse you (or other employees) have will depend on two things - what the information reveals and how quickly it is removed.
Let's deal with the speed of removal first. A company is both legally and ethically obliged to protect the privacy and security of employee's data. From a legal point of view, says Makbool Javaid, employment partner at DLA, if individual employees can be identified from the information, and assuming they have not given their consent to publication, then the Data Protection Act has been breached by what you describe.
If the company does not remove it, you could make a complaint to the Information Commissioner (IC) that breaches of the Data Protection Act are occurring. The IC would then carry out an investigation into the company's practices and issue an Enforcement Notice to protect the privacy of these people, probably to password protect all of this information. If the company did not comply, then the IC could take them to court and the company could be fined and/or its directors could face criminal sanction. You may also be awarded damages by a court in such circumstances. If the company removes the information promptly, however, it would probably not be worth suing for damages as it would be hard to argue that great damage had been suffered.
A potentially more serious issue is if the information reveals discrimination. For example, you say that it reveals large discrepancies with regard to pay. If there is evidence of discrimination in pay, bonuses or promotion that are based on race, sex, sexual orientation, disability and/or religion/religious belief, then any affected employee could bring a discrimination claim in an employment tribunal.
This applies regardless of whether the information is subsequently removed or not - discrimination is discrimination!
Next week's question: I work as a high yield analyst in one of the largest retail fund mgmt firms in the UK. I have been there for two years and enjoy my job. The problem is that I keep getting calls from headhunters who tell me that I am massively underpaid. They have set up an interview with a big US hedge fund who are expanding their London team, where the package will be much higher. Am I risking my good job with a well known firm and good hours, for a job that I will end up despising? Or should I seize this opportunity because of the higher pay. I am feeling really guilty for having set up the interview!
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