Data Protection at Work: The Workers’ Privacy and the Use of Online Social Networks in Hiring Decisions
The world in general and labour law specifically has been suffering in the last years countless changes related with the enormous increase and development of the use of NICT in the labour relationship.
These new technologies, most of all internet, changed the business landscape, turning it in a more competitive way, but, at the same time, created a new type of control, the electronic control of the employer.
The use of these technologies of the Web 2.0, led to the user to have a positive and active attitude interacting with others, abolishing the notions of time and space, changed the labour landscape. The internet and the e-mail, the use of online social networks like Facebook or Twitter, Orkut, Friendster, or Linkedin, the blogs, the fo-rums, turned the control of the employer to a more and more present and intrusive one, affecting the workers» privacy and putting new questions to labour law, not only during the execution of the labor contract, but also previously in the hiring process and in the ending of the same.
On the other hand the notion of oblivion does not exist on the internet. Data, once published, may stay there literally forever - even when the data subject has deleted them from the «original» site, there may be copies with third parties (including ar-chive services and the «cache» function provided by a service provider). Additional-ly, some service providers refuse to speedily comply (or even to comply at all) with user requests to have data, and especially complete profiles, deleted.
However, the workers don’t leave behind their rights as persons (and certainly not their right to privacy and data protection) when they celebrate a labor contract. In fact, they have a founded and legitimate expectation of a certain degree of privacy in the workplace, because there they develop a significant part of their relationships with other human beings and there is a reasonable expectation to privacy and data protection.
Furthermore, the existence of an employment relationship does not take away the re-spect of the right to privacy and human dignity. More in particular, monitoring issues will need to take the employee’s right to privacy and the protection of his/her personal data into account.
These new technologies, most of all internet, changed the business landscape, turning it in a more competitive way, but, at the same time, created a new type of control, the electronic control of the employer.
The use of these technologies of the Web 2.0, led to the user to have a positive and active attitude interacting with others, abolishing the notions of time and space, changed the labour landscape. The internet and the e-mail, the use of online social networks like Facebook or Twitter, Orkut, Friendster, or Linkedin, the blogs, the fo-rums, turned the control of the employer to a more and more present and intrusive one, affecting the workers» privacy and putting new questions to labour law, not only during the execution of the labor contract, but also previously in the hiring process and in the ending of the same.
On the other hand the notion of oblivion does not exist on the internet. Data, once published, may stay there literally forever - even when the data subject has deleted them from the «original» site, there may be copies with third parties (including ar-chive services and the «cache» function provided by a service provider). Additional-ly, some service providers refuse to speedily comply (or even to comply at all) with user requests to have data, and especially complete profiles, deleted.
However, the workers don’t leave behind their rights as persons (and certainly not their right to privacy and data protection) when they celebrate a labor contract. In fact, they have a founded and legitimate expectation of a certain degree of privacy in the workplace, because there they develop a significant part of their relationships with other human beings and there is a reasonable expectation to privacy and data protection.
Furthermore, the existence of an employment relationship does not take away the re-spect of the right to privacy and human dignity. More in particular, monitoring issues will need to take the employee’s right to privacy and the protection of his/her personal data into account.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The use of online social networks in the hiring process
- 3. Conclusion
- 4. References
Loggen Sie sich bitte ein, um den ganzen Text zu lesen.
Es gibt noch keine Kommentare
Ihr Kommentar zu diesem Beitrag
AbonnentInnen dieser Zeitschrift können sich an der Diskussion beteiligen. Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Kommentare verfassen zu können.
0 Kommentare