Illegal spying on employees to be punished by Czech Labor Inspectorate Office

The lengthy discussions on a possible authorization of the Labor Inspectorate Office to be allowed to punish employers for breaches of their employees’ privacy has resulted in an amendment of the Labor Inspection Act, which came into effect on 29 July, 2017 and which support the employees’ position in making it easier to assert their rights by not having to follow the cumbersome procedure of applying to courts but turning directly to their local Labor Inspection Offices instead. Previously, such action was possible to perform as well, but it only resulted in a mere warning concerning the problem issued to the employer by the Office without any further sanctions. Certain cases were possible to forward to the Office for Personal Data Protection, which is entitled to sanction offences. Unfortunately, the situation took several months or even years to rectify as the Office is overload with claims.

The Labor Inspection Office, then, have assumed the authority to impose fines of up to CZK 1,000,000 in cases of the employees’ privacy breaches at their place of work or common areas and up to CZK 100,000 should the employers neglect their statutory obligation, stipulated by the Labor Code, to inform their employees about implementation of control mechanisms on the premises, including the description of their range and forms of performance. Nevertheless, such control mechanisms may only be implemented on the basis of an adequate reason connected with specific nature of the employer’s activity.