Athar (ABC) 13 September 2013

Harasment- personal information shared with others by my ex-employer

Hi All,

I worked for an IT MNC in Bangalore on payrolls of another company (XYZ Company) from Feb 10 to Aug 10 and after leaving the organization, I had submitted the PF withdrawal forms to XYZ company for further processing, but they did not respond to me for next 6 months despite of continuous follow-ups and when I went to their office and met their HR head he said that my PF form has been misplaced by concerned EPFO and I will have to resubmit it.

I resubmitted the form and again I they did not process it for next one year, despite of rigorous follow-up from my end. Then, I sent them a formal warning letter by registered post asking them to submit it else I will file a case against them in labor court. That is when they processed it and I got the money after about 20 months of follow-ups.

And yesterday, I got a call from a gentleman from Mumbai who also worked for another MNC on the payrolls of this company, and he is also facing the same problem. I asked him, how did you get my number? How do you know that I worked for this company? He said “ XYZ company has sent a sample PF form to him, in which my phone number was mentioned”. I requested him to forward the same mail to me and when he forwarded that sample PF form to me, I got to know that XYZ company is sharing the scanned copy of my PF form with all its employees as a sample form. This form contains my bank account details, All my contact details, my address, my date of birth, my father’s name etc. I’m afraid that this information can be misused by anyone and even my bank account can be hacked.

Please let me know if I can take any legal action against the XYZ company for sharing my personal information with random people, without my permission?

If yes, what legal actions can be taken against them?

Can I claim for any compensation from them for the Harasment that I am being subjected to?

Regards,

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2 Replies

T. Kalaiselvan, Advocate (Advocate) 13 September 2013

Mr. Athar,

If you have strong evidence in hand that your privacy i.e., personal information has been leaked out to third persons by some miscreants intentionally to bring dis-repute to your name and fame, you can file a suit claiming damages besides lodging a criminal complaint or a private complaint before a court of law for initiating criminal action against the said miscreant.

Athar (ABC) 13 September 2013

Hi Sir,

The evidence that I have is the scanned copy of my own PF form, which was sent to me by a third person in an e-mail.

This person can get this form either from myself or from my ex-employer, and If I have not shared it has to be my ex-employer who shared this form for this person.

This form contains my Bank account details, my phone numbers, my Date of birth, my father's name, my address and all this information is not supposed to be shared with anyone unless I ask for it.

Regards,

Athar