Monitoring and surveillance of the employee’s on-line activities at the workplace in the EU

Abstract

This dissertation explores specific methods which an employer can choose to use to monitor and surveille his employees’ on-line activities. Monitoring and surveillance of employees has been ongoing in workplaces for a very long time and despite the concerns it raises, the legislator has still not yet incorporated any specific binding rules at a European Union level to regulate the monitoring of employees. Nonetheless,the recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) includes added protections which are intended to protect the employee’s rights over their personal data, which consequently equate to added obligations on the part of the employers. Most notable is the stricter definition of consent, making it a generally invalid legal basis upon which an employer can base the processing of the employee’s data. Owing to the subordinate nature of the employer-employee relationship, monitoring of employees seems to be more beneficial to the employers and consequently, impacts the employees’ data protection and privacy rights. This dissertation focuses on the nature, extent and scope of the monitoring and surveillance of employees’ on-line activities in light of the relevant provisions of the GDPR and the core principles of data protection, whilst making reference to several judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union and case-law of other Member States, so as to examine whether the added safeguards incorporated at EU level are achieving the desired balance between the employer’s interests and the employee’s rights.