Employee monitoring
Employee monitoring refers to the monitoring of employees by employers . This has several purposes: On the one hand, business processes are to be optimized, on the other hand, the performance and behavior of employees should be monitored in order to record misconduct in detail and to be able to prove it. In addition, however, cases have become known in which the privacy of employees and their relatives has been spied on.
Employee monitoring affects both privacy and personal data protection as well as operational human resources .
Legal development
Germany
The employee data protection is often seen as not sufficiently taken into account. Often the works councils do not deal sufficiently with the problem either, although they would be obliged to do so according to Section 87 (1) No. 1 and No. 6 of the Works Constitution Act.
According to the decision of the German Federal Labor Court , monitoring may only take place “to the extent necessary” (Federal Labor Court, judgment of August 26, 2008, Az .: 1 ABR16 / 07).
In February 2009, Frank Bsirske , head of the Verdi service union , advocated an employee data protection law . Reinhard Göhner , General Manager of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations , spoke out against it.
Finally, data protection is to be implemented through various changes in the law on the basis of the law regulating employee data protection , the draft of which was approved on August 25, 2010.
Forms of implementation
- Time recording by time clocks or magnetic cards are used and recognized in many places.
- However, further systematic recording of toilet visits or short smoking breaks would result in a complete movement profile of every employee.
- In the field of forwarding technology, employees can be permanently located using software installed on the mobile phones .
- In the case of taxis, complete tracking via GPS is even possible and is today's standard. Digital technology can also monitor the interior and transmit sound and images to the taxi control center. The data storage of the movement data was criticized in 2013 by the Bremer Taxi Drivers interest group.
- Daily output measurements etc.
- Retail companies in particular use surveillance cameras to be able to monitor whether employees commit theft themselves. These companies include the discounters Penny-Markt , Netto and Norma as well as Rewe , Tegut , Hagebau and Famila .
- E-mails, Internet, phone calls: By logging surfing behavior , viewing e-mails and recording phone calls, you can gain insight into communication, professional opinions and privacy. The Bremer Taxi Drivers interest group complained, among other things, of the recording of customer calls.
- At Telekom and Deutsche Bahn, the supplier's bank details were compared with the wage and salary accounts of the workforce.
- the gathering of Schufa -Auskünften deemed not permitted.
Use of detectives
- Use of authorized persons for checks such as test purchases , for example with goods hidden in the shopping cart.
- Detectives are assigned to employees, for example in the event of illness or to check sales representatives
- The logs are often expanded to include observations on private relationships, lovesickness, divorces, alcohol problems, illnesses, and unemployed relatives
Well-known scandal and legal disputes
Germany
Some companies have had disputes that have become publicly known:
- Lidl : The company used private detectives to observe the behavior of employees and also to research behavior in the area of privacy. The discovery led to the scandal in spring 2008. Lidl received a total fine of 1.462 million euros.
- IKEA and Burger King were criticized for filming in April 2008.
- The Deutsche Telekom surveillance affair has been a concern of the public since May 2008
- Gerling evaluated the telephone and e-mail targets of employees, as it became known in July 2008.
- MediaMarkt : The employees in the Wolfsburg branch were threatened with a genetic test in October 2008. The occasion was the repeated popping of the men's toilets. The Braunschweiger Zeitung reported on this . The trading company then threatened this newspaper with the discontinuation of the advertisements, the newspaper had to reckon with losses in advertising income of 300,000 euros.
- Bahn AG : All business, private and social contacts of around 1,000 top executives were secretly collected in order to create contact diagrams, as became known in April 2009. The spouses were also researched.
- A company employee was monitored with a camera in the entrance area. In October 2010, she received compensation of 7,000 euros. According to the court, it was "a serious and persistent violation of the right to informational self-determination" ( Hessisches Landesarbeitsgericht , judgment of October 25, 2010, Az. 7 Sa 1586/09).
- In April 2013, REWE admitted that it had video-monitored employees in the Penny chain in individual cases and tracked them down with detectives.
Austria
- The company Tiger Lacke, Wels , was accused in July 2009 of creating sick leave rankings, observing employees with hidden cameras and reading emails.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Axel Janssen: Codetermination in data protection. ( online )
- ↑ Employers reject data protection law. February 16, 2009 ( online )
- ↑ Federal cabinet adopts draft law regulating employee data protection. ( online ( Memento of the original from June 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. )
- ↑ a b Julia Kleine: Employee monitoring. The boss as Big Brother. In: Focus Online , February 16, 2009 ( online )
- ^ A b Marco Carini: Inadmissible total control. In: taz , March 21, 2013 ( online )
- ^ A b Jean-Philipp Baeck: Data octopus taxi call. In: taz , March 21, 2013 ( online )
- ↑ a b Arno Schupp: Data storage in the taxi. In: Buten un in , March 19, 2013
- ↑ a b York Schaefer: Taxi drivers fear complete surveillance. In: Weser-Kurier , March 16, 2013
- ↑ Employee monitoring . Stasi methods widely used. In: Focus Online , April 16, 2008 ( online )
- ↑ star ( online )
- ↑ Ex-Aldi manager: "The system lives from control and fear." In: Spiegel, May 2, 2012 ( online )
- ↑ ver.di: Monitoring at the workplace ( http://www.verdi.de/handel.bawue/betriebsratsarbeit/ueberendung_am_arbeitsplatz ( Memento from April 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) )
- ↑ Surveillance scandal : Lidl admits spying. In: Stern , March 25, 2008 ( online )
- ↑ Spy scandal damages Lidl's image. In: Stern , February 9, 2009 ( online ( memento from October 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
- ↑ Focus ( online )
- ↑ Ikea and Burger King also monitored staff. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 29, 2008 ( online )
- ^ Telecom process. Spy victims are not allowed to ask questions in court. In: Spiegel , September 2, 2010 ( online )
- ↑ Spy affair: Telekom employees must be imprisoned for three and a half years. In: Spiegel Online . November 30, 2010, accessed June 10, 2018 .
- ↑ New case of employee spying. July 28, 2008 ( online )
- ↑ Booger scandal. A possible advertising boycott brings Media Markt into disrepute. In: Spiegel Online , April 20, 2009 ( online )
- ↑ Bahn violated data protection when monitoring employees. January 21, 2009 ( online ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )
- ↑ Video interview: The great spying on employees. January 21, 2009 ( online )
- ↑ Comprehensive surveillance. In: Hessian State Labor Court , April 23, 2009 ( online )
- ↑ Focus ( online )
- ^ Hessisches Landesarbeitsgericht , judgment of October 25, 2010, Az. 7 Sa 1586/09
- ↑ dpa -Meldung: discounter Penny staff with cameras spying. Spiegel Online , April 29, 2013, accessed May 28, 2013 .
- ↑ Employee surveillance reaches Austria. July 5, 2009 ( online )
