Preamble

• Pages: 8-9

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Commentary on the code of practice

1. Preamble

This code applies to all exposures of workers to fibres and dust from Since the

beginning of the 1970s, the protection of personal data has become a major issue at both

the national and the international level. The growing number of national laws on the

subject points to a readiness to address the implications of increasingly sophisticated

means of processing data. The Council of Europe’s 1981 Convention for the Protection

of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data,1 the OECD’s 1980

Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data2 as

well as the 1995 European Union Directive on the protection of individuals with regard

to the processing of personal data,3 underline the need to complete these more general

rules on data protection by internationally accepted principles in the field of

employment.

Each of the above-mentioned documents reflects the conviction that the systematic

collection and retrieval of personal data has far-reaching consequences. The gathering of

a large number of data and the many different uses to which they are put not only

multiply the risk of false or misunderstood information, but also permit close monitoring

of the persons concerned and intensify tendencies to influence or even to manipulate

their behaviour. The less, therefore, that the persons concerned know about who is

processing which data for which purposes, the less they are able to assess their

individual situation and to express and defend their interests: in short, they have

difficulty in determining their own personal development. The quest for principles to

govern the processing of personal data expresses, therefore, the need to protect human

dignity.

The efficiency of a particular regulation or set of principles, however, depends

largely on its ability to cope with the problems typical of a particular processing context.

The very general rules that were originally developed on data processing have therefore

increasingly been replaced by sectoral provisions. The processing of employee data is

probably one of the best examples of the need for a sectoral approach. In hardly any

other case are so many personal data processed over such a long period of time as in

connection with the employment relationship. Employers collect personal data on job

applicants and workers for a number of purposes: to comply with law; to assist in

selection for employment, training and promotion; to ensure personal safety, quality

control, customer service and protection of property; and to organize the work process.

The introduction of new fringe benefits, regulations to reduce occupational safety and

health risks, and the increasing expectation of state agencies such as employment and

1 Council of Europe: Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic

Processing of Personal Data, European Treaty Series No. 108 (Strasbourg, 1981).

2 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Guidelines on the Protection

of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (Paris, 1981).

3 “Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the

Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of

Such Data”, in Official Journal of the European Communities, Vol. 38, No. 281, 23 November 1995, p.

31.