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Received: 2022-11-15 | Accepted: 2023-01-11 | Published: 2023-03-30

Title

Boundaries of the employee's privacy in employment relationship

Abstract

This article analyses the specifics of implementing employee privacy obligations in employment relationships. In employment relations, the employer has a general duty to make the employee aware of the local legislation governing his or her work. In this context, there is a clash between two legally protected interests: on the one hand, the employer's interest in protecting the business, ensuring business processes, the security of assets and the health and safety of employees, and on the other hand, the obligation not to infringe the employee's right to privacy. Technical means of monitoring employees are one of the simplest ways of collecting data and Information. At the same time, the question of proportionality of using such means is raised - whether all the Information collected by automated means is necessary to justify the specific purpose of data collection. Collecting data solely for personal interest without setting strict rules on the collection of Information and the limits of the Information collected restricts an employee's right to privacy. An employer is not entitled to collect data (monitoring) to control an employee's work process or behaviour but may record specific data if necessary to protect production, health and safety or to ensure the efficient running of an organisation. However, even in such cases, the employer must take additional measures to minimise such monitoring or evaluate its results as much as possible. The author analyses the problem in the context of the employment relationship, and through the implementation of the employer's obligation to establish specific local rules and the commitment to make the employee aware of those rules (transparency principle).

Keywords

employees' right to privacy, local regulation, limits to the right to privacy, balancing the interests of the employer and employee

JEL classifications

K12 , K24 , K31

URI

http://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/1061

DOI

DOI 10.9770/jesi.2023.10.3(13)

Pages

186-198

Funding

This article was prepared as part of an awareness raising project Solving Privacy Paradox 2: Promoting High Standards of Data Protection as a Fundamental Right at the Workplace (SolPriPa2WORK).

This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Authors

Mačiulaitis, Vilius

Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania https://www.mruni.eu

Articles by this author in: CrossRef | Google Scholar

Journal title

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

Volume

Number

Issue date

March 2023

Issue DOI

DOI 10.9770/jesi.2023.10.3

ISSN

ISSN 2345-0282 (online)

Publisher

VšĮ Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

Cited

Article views & downloads

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References

Asvanyi, Z (2022). Technology vs privacy at work: The extent and limitations of organizational control mechanisms. MANAGEMENT-Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 27(2) http://doi.org/10.30924/mjcmi.27.2.14