First published at Tsaaro Academy ( click here )

Introduction 

Do we have the right to privacy and can we enjoy it as a right especially upon our personal data when we are at our workplace? This is the fundamental question that this blog would be dealing with, from the perspective of the General Data Protection Regulation also known as GDPR.

Coming to the next important question as to what will come under the ambit of ‘personal data’? The simple answer would be- A personal data will include all the sensitive categories of data that are related to an identifiable natural person. The following are some examples of personal data-

• Physical or mental health condition;
• Sex life and sexual orientation;
• Racial or ethnic origin;
• Political opinions, religious beliefs;
• Trade union membership;
• Biometric data.

When it comes to monitoring employees, businesses and organizations are not new to this concept, rather the concept of surveillance is decades old. In order to understand and analyze this question, it is important to first understand the employee-employer relation, as we know that it’s an undisputed fact that there will always remain an imbalance of power between the two, which is why the concept of consent cannot be a relevant ground on claiming that such monitoring was genuine or not arbitrary.

Since we are living in the age of digitalization, we need to understand that anything we do either professionally or in our private sphere, we tend to leave our digital footprints on the internet which means that we can easily be traced by anyone and also we are opening doors to potential scammers and other related risks as our data is scattered everywhere on the internet that is also the reason why our ‘Data’ is the new gold/fuel for today’s businesses and organizations.

How is monitoring done on employees?

Monitoring of employees can be done easily through CCTVs, softwares and now we have spywares too. But what exactly will constitute ‘monitoring’ ? It can be monitoring an employee’s internet history, emails, financial transactions, call logs, his private chats with employees and/or with other people...continue reading