Berlin service provider has to pay a high level of punishment for data protection violations

Berlin service provider has to pay a high level of punishment for data protection violations

A Berlin service provider was sentenced to a punishment of 215,000 euros by the Berlin data protection officer Meike Kamp for data protection violations. The service provider led a kind of black list of employees in the trial period and inadmissibly documented sensitive information about the health status of individual employees and their interest in starting a works council. This information was collected with regard to possible dismissals at the end of the trial period.

The data protection officer criticized that the company had a tabular overview of all employees during the trial period, on the instructions of the management. The supervisor evaluated the further employment of eleven people as "critical" or "very critical" and noted personal statements, health and external reasons that conflict with flexible classification. The possible interest in the establishment of a works council and regular participation in psychotherapy were also mentioned in the list. Often the employees had communicated this information themselves for duty planning.

The data protection officer emphasized that the processing of such sensitive information is only allowed within narrow limits and was not permitted in this case. Health data in particular is particularly sensitive information that may only be processed with the consent of those affected.

The company can still file an objection to the notice of fines, so that the punishment is not yet final.

Source: Tagesspiegel

Kommentare (0)