But even if nothing unfavorable is added, any employee is allowed to view their own file twice a year.<\/p>\n
Following the lead of Massachusetts, state lawmakers believe employees have the right to know what employers place in a personnel file, especially since it can impact future employment opportunities within a current company or with another employer. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill on Sept. 9.<\/p>\n
![\"jared-cook\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/jared-cook-278x300.jpg\")
Jared Cook<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason the legislature thinks this must be addressed is because of the way personnel files are used,\u201d said Jared Cook, senior counsel in the Rochester office of Tully Rinckey PLLC. \u201cThey use your file when they make decisions about are we going to promote this person, are we going to discipline this person, are we going to give them a raise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you as an employee think that there\u2019s something in that file that is false or incorrect or unfairly puts you in a bad light, you, first, have a right to know, and second, have a right to respond to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sponsored by Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn), the bill is meant to create \u201can open and transparent dialogue between employees and their supervisors while providing some recourse for employees to remove knowingly false or defamatory statements from their records.\u201d<\/p>\n
The law, which applies to any employer in New York, requires:<\/p>\n
Any time negative information is added to a file, the employee must be notified within 10 days;
\nThe employee then has the right to request, in writing, access to their personnel file and the employer must grant that request within five days.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you see something that you don\u2019t agree with or think is incorrect, you can request a correction,\u201d Cook said. \u201cIf the employee and employer can\u2019t agree on that, then the employee has the right to submit written statements in response to that information and the employer must put that into the personnel file.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy giving employees the right to submit this response to anything they disagree with, this at least remedies that potential imbalance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The law also says an employee has the right to have \u201cknowingly false\u201d information expunged, either through a collective bargaining agreement, other personnel procedures or through judicial process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a little vague,\u201d Cook said. \u201cIt\u2019s not clear exactly what that\u2019s going to mean in practice. I could see a court could say, \u2018You have the right to sue in court,\u2019 and if you win, that\u2019s expunged.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have to see if the Department of Labor<\/a> issues some regulations that clarify that, or if it gets clarified through court decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n So why would there be ambiguity in the language? Cook said there are usually two reasons every detailed isn\u2019t spelled out. One, the lawmakers didn\u2019t consider every practical application.<\/p>\n \u201cOr, maybe legislators had very different ideas and they couldn\u2019t agree on it,\u201d he said, \u201cso they just picked some language that they could agree on, even though it was vague, and they\u2019ll leave it to the DOL or the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n Violations of the law can be punished through one of two avenues:<\/p>\n If an employer refuses to grant access to the file, the employee can file a complaint with the Attorney General\u2019s Office, and the office would decide whether to pursue an investigation.
\nThen if the AG\u2019s Office finds an employer violated the law, a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $2,500 could be imposed.
\nAn employee can only request to see their file or ask that a rebuttal to a negative entry be added. \u201cBut if the employer retaliates against you because you asked to see your file or to put something in your file, then you have the right to sue them for retaliation,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n