OSHA has announced that it is not accepting electronic submissions of injury and illness logs “at this time.” The agency also says it intends to propose extending the July 1, 2017 date by which certain employers are required to submit the information from their completed 2016 Form 300A electronically. The effective date for the new rule was already delayed from January 1, 2017.
The rule calls for employers to electronically submit data that they are already required to record on their onsite OSHA Injury and Illness forms. OSHA’s plan to post the data on its website came in for intense criticism from industry, which said it could potentially expose workers’ private information and be misused by third parties.
OSHA said the rule would improve safety for workers across the country because public disclosure of injury and illness figures would “nudge” employers to focus on safety and that analysis of the data would enable the agency to focus its enforcement and compliance assistance resources more efficiently.