On May 4, the German Conference of the Federal and State Data Protection Authorities (DSK) published a call for an Employee Data Protection Act. As a reminder, in Germany, data protection is organized by state. There are state data protection authorities for each of the 16 German states and two for Bavaria—one each for public and for private data controllers. Together with the Federal Data Protection Authority of Germany, which is in charge of federal public data controllers, they comprise the DSK.
In their call for a specific employee data protection act, the DSK are referring to the announcement by the German governing parties in the federal coalition agreement of November 2021 that a distinct employee privacy act would be created by the coalition parties that are planning on being in government until 2025.
This act would be in addition to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies in Germany, and in addition to s26 of the German Data Protection Act (BDSG), which was enacted in May 2018 along with the GDPR. Currently a single provision of the BDSG regulates the basics of national employee privacy protection, as provided for in Article 88 of the GDPR.
It can be assumed that the discussion on whether a specific employee data privacy act is needed, and what it should contain, will continue over the coming weeks and months. It is further to be expected that draft legislation will be presented by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS)...
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