EEOC: Digital transmission is equivalent to receipt by first class mail. Image: Burdun Iliya/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe EEOC has finalized changes to case-handling policies affecting both individual federal employees who bring complaints there and the federal agencies that are the subject of such complaints, to allow for wider use of electronic transmissions of documents related to hearings and appeals.
Rules in the August 24 Federal Register finalize policies proposed last September to require agencies to notify complainants that the EEOC’s Electronic Public Portal is available; to allow complainants to file hearing requests, appeals, and related documents through the portal; and to allow the EEOC to send out decisions, orders, and related documents through the portal rather than through the mail.
“The final rule confirms that the digital receipt of hearing requests, appeals, Commission hearing and appellate decisions, and related documents, is equivalent to receipt by first class mail. Nevertheless, the final rule makes clear that a complainant’s use of the Portal is voluntary,” the notice says.
The EEOC will continue to use mail to communicate with, and send documents to, complainants who do not establish a portal account or who establish one but do not agree to receive EEOC communications only through it, even though it would send those documents electronically to agencies through a separate portal for them called FedSEP.
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