P.R. Laws tit. 29, § 621a
(a) No employer of a private enterprise or of a public corporation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico may show or display the social security number of an employee, regardless of the nature of his/her position or appointment, in his/her identification card, nor may show or display that data in a place visible to the general public or in a document of general circulation. No social security number may be included in any personnel directory or in any similar list that is made available to persons who have no need or authority for accessing such data.
These protective measures may be rejected voluntarily or in writing by the employee although said rejection may not be imposed as a condition for employment. This provision shall not be applicable as to the use of the social security number in those cases and for those purposes for which it is specifically compulsory by special provision of law, nor for which it has been authorized or regulated through federal law or regulation, nor for its use for the internal purpose of verifying the identity, taxes, contracting and payrolls, subject to the employer taking the proper safeguards for maintaining its confidentiality.
When a document containing the social security number of a worker has to be made public for a purpose which does not require that data, the same shall be edited so that said data is partially or totally illegible without this being deemed an alteration of the contents of the document.
(b) The violation of the provisions of this section, including the failure to protect the confidentiality of the social security number, entails a fine of not less than five hundred dollars ($500) or up to five thousand dollars ($5,000) for each case. The Department of Labor and Human Resources of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico shall be the agency in charge of supervising compliance with this section.
(c) Should any provision, word, sentence or subsection of this section were to be impugned for any reason by a court and declared unconstitutional or null, or should any federal legislation or regulation occupy the field, such an action shall not affect, impair or invalidate the remaining provisions of this section.
(d) The Department of Labor and Human Resources shall have six (6) months after the effective date of this act to establish the regulations needed to comply with the provisions of subsection (b) of this section; said regulations must grant employers a term of not less than six (6) months to certify to the Department the implementation of these provisions or a work plan with a certain date within which it is to be achieved.
(e) None of the provisions of this section shall be understood to impair any organizational policy of an employer or of any collective bargaining agreement which are already in effect and provide protections to the confidentiality of the social security number and sanctions for noncompliance.
History —Sept. 27, 2006, No. 207, §§ 1—5.