Employment agencies

• Pages: 24-24

Protection of workers’ personal data

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(11.12) Rectification is particularly difficult in the case of judgemental data, such as

those contained in evaluation reports. Since the contested data can usually be neither

erased nor replaced, the code provides for the possibility of workers supplementing

stored data by a statement of their own view, which should be included in all subsequent

communications of the data, unless again the worker does not believe it is necessary.

(11.13) Finally, the code provides that where the data protection provisions are to be

applied, workers should have a complaints procedure and avenue of redress to question

the employers’ compliance.

12. Collective rights

The protection of workers against risks arising from the processing of their personal

data and the ability to defend their interests successfully depend to a decisive extent on

collective rights. Both the form and the content of these rights must be adapted to

national systems of labour relations. Where, for instance, institutions such as the works

council play a major role in determining conditions of work, their influence on the

processing of workers’ personal data will, as the experience of France and Germany

illustrates, be comparable. Where, on the contrary, conditions of work are more or less

exclusively regulated by collective bargaining, the workers’ interests in respect of data

processing will have to be defended by their trade unions and their representatives at

plant level.

(12.1) To minimize risks for individual workers, the code states that all collective

negotiations affecting the processing of worker’s personal data should be guided by the

principles of the code and therefore primarily aim at the best possible protection of these

data. Secondly, workers’ representatives should be informed and consulted about the

introduction or modification of automated systems intended to process personal data;

before the introduction of any electronic monitoring of workers’ behaviour in the

workplace [12.2(a) and (b)]; and about the purpose, the contents and the manner of

administering and interpreting questionnaires and tests regarding the personal data of

workers [12.2(c)].

13. Employment agencies

Employers increasingly entrust specialized agencies with recruitment. Protection of

the workers’ personal data can only be secured if in such cases the principles in this

code are also extended to employment agencies. The code, therefore, specifically states

that whenever employers use employment agencies to recruit workers they should

explicitly request that the agencies collect and process the data in accordance with the

provisions of the code.