Is it legal for my boss to require I take the covid 19 vaccine? I'm from South Africa but we basically follow British/USA law so answers from any of those jurisdictions will be fine. I work in digital marketing. But my boss doesn't want us to work from home. Please note I have no condition that restricts me from taking the vaccine, I just prefer not to.
south-africa It is legal for South African employers to adopt a mandatory vaccination policy. The guidelines for such policies are described in Annexure C of Consolidated Coronavirus COVID-19 Direction on Occupational Health and Safety Measures in Certain Workplaces, released in June 2021. Briefly, it appears that employers may impose mandatory vaccination policies. However, employees can object to being vaccinated policy on &quot;constitutional1 or medical grounds&quot;. If the employee does so, the employer must &quot;counsel the employee&quot;, refer them for further medical examination (if a medical exemption is claimed), and provide &quot;reasonable accommodations&quot; so that employees who remain unvaccinated can remain employed. What exactly is a &quot;reasonable accommodation&quot; is in the eye of the beholder. Working from home is mentioned as a possible accommodation in the above-linked document. Other possible accommodations might include being transferred to a position that involves less public interaction, being required to wear a mask at all times, or working at different hours or a different location from other employees. If reasonable accommodations cannot be made due to the nature of the employer and the employee's position &amp; duties, then the employee may be dismissed. Ultimately, what types of accommodations are &quot;reasonable&quot; will depend on the specific circumstances of the employer and the employee. If you are considering going this route, it would be worth your while to consult with a lawyer. If you have a trade union that represents you, it might be worth consulting with them as well. Finally, while the above outlines your legal rights to refuse to be vaccinated, I feel obliged to encourage you to just get vaccinated. The risks are minuscule and the benefits to you and those around you are substantial. 1 &quot;Constitutional&quot; here refers to religious beliefs but also to Section 12(2)(b) of the South African Constitution, which guarantees that everyone has the right &quot;to security in and control over their body&quot;.
Not legal advice - you should consult an attorney who knows your local jurisdiction. That's a general statement, but especially true here because the GDPR does not include personal liability for directors (or others) in the event of a data breach, but domestic laws may indeed do just that. The UK is one example where certain circumstances can lead to criminal liability for directors of a firm in the event of a breach. That said, your company should care. The fines for knowingly allowing a breach or not reporting it properly in a timely manner have been made more significant than the prior Directive. There are things you could do to potentially mitigate consequences in the event of a breach and a fine being levied on the company, such as aligning with best practices and getting certifications. In sum, the actual punishments for noncompliance will vary by jurisdiction, but any business that handles data in the EU should undoubtedly be ensuring it is aware of what, if any, obligations it has and taking steps to comply before May's deadline.
Yes, it’s legal Homeopathic “medicines” contain no active ingredients so they are effectively placebos. Placebo work for some patients some of the time but they don’t work if the patient knows what they are. For them to be effective they have to be kept secret. Most doctors from time-to-time and for various reasons prescribe placebos. The ethics of this practice is debatable but the legality isn’t - it’s totally legal.
I found a mention of this issue here, where the case Rhonda Eddy v. Ingenesis was cited. Eddy worked from home in West Virginia, but had signed her contract with a company headquartered in Texas. The link is the decision of The State of West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which upheld the decision of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, namely, that the Circuit Court did not have the authority to hear Eddy's petition against her employer because she was out of the Circuit Court's jurisdiction. The circuit court found that it did not have personal jurisdiction over respondent under West Virginia’s personal jurisdiction statutes, and that respondent did not have sufficient minimum contacts with West Virginia to satisfy federal due process considerations. The circuit court also found that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over petitioner’s WPCA claim because petitioner’s employment contract contained a valid choice of law clause that mandated Texas law would govern any dispute between the parties. Emphasis mine. It all depends on stipulations made in the employment contract. This (in the United Kingdom) states 4. Place of Work Allows the employer to specify the location where the employee will work. However, it also allows for the employer to specify any other location in the future. This gives the employer much greater flexibility. That would seem to indicate that (at least in the U.K.) the place is specified in the contract.
Vaccination status does not currently define a protected class under Florida or Federal law. Being or not being vaccinated is not legally recognized as a condition that &quot;substantially limits a major life activity&quot;, hence is not an example of disability-related discrimination. The opposite scenario, where an employer refuses to hire an un-vaccinated person, potentially runs afoul of disability discrimination laws when a person has a legal disability that prevents their vaccination. As noted here, due to the scope of the Privacy Rule HIPAA does not directly apply to your question, when the patient discloses information. However, the healthcare provider cannot disclose such information without patient authorization. It's hard to see a First Amendment basis supporting the action (in case the law changes w.r.t. vaccination and discrimination). You could imagine a religion which holds that vaccination against some disease is blasphemy, and forcing an employer to hire the vaccinated is compelled speech which repudiates a fundament of their belief. Even so, it is not sufficient that the business owner holds some odd belief, the belief has to be essential to the nature of the business (see BSA v. Dale). That could be the case of a religious school.
Of course you have to follow the license. You seem to have a license that doesn't allow distribution and want to know if giving copies to the Dutch or Chinese branch of your company is distribution. First, you should not make that decision. Your company's lawyers should do that. Second, such distribution is with some licenses perfectly legal if you distribute the software with source code. That's a business decision which you or your manager or his/her manager... can make. Such questions (whether giving a copy to your Dutch branch is distribution) often don't have an answer that is yes or no but maybe - if you went to court, would a judge say that it is distribution? The answer is quite clearly "maybe". So unless you can find a safe way, there is a risk. Again, your lawyers will assess the risk.
&quot;Medical lawyer&quot; is really the wrong focus, this is an issue of civil rights. The question would be, is it a violation of your civil rights to prevent you from taking your baby home; is it legal for the federal government to investigate people who refuse to take a covid test? You can take the question along with pertinent evidence to a civil rights attorney. To pick a non-random hospital's web page, they note that &quot;Any person having surgery or a procedure, including birth, at a Texas Health hospital will be tested for COVID-19 to provide appropriate care for the patient, and for the protection of visitors and the care team&quot;, and &quot;you will need to be tested at admission to help safeguard you and the care team&quot;. In answer to the question whether you can decline testing, they say &quot;Testing is recommended to promote the health of you and your baby. Patients who have COVID-19 can have a weakened immune system and may have inflammatory symptoms that can compromise healing. We encourage you to speak with your provider about the best decision for you&quot;, which doesn't explicitly say &quot;No you may not&quot;, nor &quot;Yes, you may&quot;. However, they cannot literally force you to take the test: at most, they can refuse to treat you. In answer to the question &quot;Will I be separated from my baby if I test positive for COVID-19?&quot;, they say &quot;Texas Health will follow guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of OB/GYN and the Centers for Disease Control for how to keep you and your baby safe during your hospital stay. Ultimately, any decisions about care for you and your baby will be between you and your provider, based on what is best for you both&quot;. This is also not crystal clear. There are three primary legal issues, putting a worst spin on their policy. They say up front that you will be tested prior to admission: the question is whether you can decline to take the test but force them to admit you. Now we are closer to the realm of a medical negligence attorney – they can refuse to treat you, but that might leave them liable. The second question is whether they can temporarily take the infant away, against the mother's wishes (for example, hold the infant in a separate facility while the mother is in the hospital). The third question is whether they have direct authority to take the infant away when you leave the hospital. The third question gets a plain and simple no. The Texas Dept. of Family and Protective Services has some authority in such a matter, but taking a child requires an investigation and a court order.
Yes, you still need consent (opt-in). Cookies usually require consent, but not always. There are two relevant laws at play here: GDPR makes general rules about the processing of personal data, and ePrivacy has specific rules about cookies and similar technologies, regardless of whether the cookies involve personal data. The ePrivacy directive was implemented in your EU member state (or the UK) in national law. The national laws contain the authoritative rules on this matter. But in general: Accessing or storing any information (such as cookies) on the end user's device requires consent. Consent is defined by the GDPR. You do not need consent if the access/storage is strictly necessary for a service explicitly requested by the user (“functional cookies”). Using cookies to store site preferences such as user language is strictly necessary for a service explicitly requested by the user, so you do not need consent for this. You must still make your use of cookies transparent to the user. Setting cookies for marketing purposes is not strictly necessary to provide the service, so you always require consent for them. Registered users don't automatically give consent. You now raise the interesting question if this is also the case if the user is already registered. Yes, you still need consent (opt-in). This is due to the way how the GDPR defines “consent”. Consent is not general or vague agreement. Agreement with your terms of service or privacy policy is not consent in the sense of the GDPR. Instead, consent is defined in Art 4(11) GDPR to be (emphasis mine): any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her Art 7 GDPR adds further conditions for consent. (1) You are responsible for demonstrating that the user has given valid consent. (2) The request for consent should be clearly distinguishable from other matters (i.e. not buried in a larger document) and should be presented “in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language.” (3) Withdrawing consent must be as easy as giving it. (4) In general, you cannot make access to a service conditional on unrelated consent. I.e. you can't force your users to consent to marketing cookies in order to use the app. The users must have an actual choice, or the consent isn't freely given. Supervisory authorities have produced extensive guidance on the matter of consent. If you're in the UK, consider the ICO Guide to Consent and Guidance on the use of cookies and similar technologies. If you're in the EU/EEA, consider the EDPB Guidelines 05/2020 on Consent (PDF). To summarize why agreement with your terms of service is not consent to marketing cookies: Agreement to such large documents is not sufficiently specific. The consent would not be sufficiently informed. You cannot expect users to actually read all your legal documentation. You must present information in an intelligible manner, possibly with multiple layers (compare WP29 Guidelines on Transparency, endorsed by EDPB). Agreement to your terms of service is not an unambiguous indication that the user wants these cookies. If consent to marketing cookies is a condition of using your service, the consent is likely invalid. The consequence is that cookie consent is usually obtained via separate consent management tools that provide detailed explanations about different categories of cookies, and let the user select which specifically categories of cookies they want to consent to, if any. Outside of cookies, consent is just one legal basis among many. In this context, you might ask “if getting consent is so difficult, but GDPR requires that I have consent, how does that work?” It is a common misconception that the GDPR requires consent for everything – the ePrivacy requirement that most cookies need consent is one of the exceptions. In general, GDPR offers a choice of six categories of legal bases for processing in Art 6 GDPR, and consent is just one of them. In many cases, an online service will process personal data because it is necessary to fulfil a contract with the user, or because there is a legitimate interest for the processing (and the legitimate interest outweighs the user's interests). For example, reasonable security measures such as keeping logfiles can be based on a legitimate interest and do not require consent.