THE GERMAN STATE DPA IMPOSES A FINE OF € 10.4 MILLION ON NOTEBOOKSBILLIGER.DE

27.01.2021

The State Commissioner for Data Protection in Lower Saxony (“DPA”) has imposed a fine of 10.4 million EUR, which is the highest penalty ever imposed by the State DPA, against notebooksbilliger.de AG due to unlawfully monitoring the employees for at least 2 years.

In the present case, the company had been using video surveillance to monitor its employees for at least two years with no legal justification. Some of the areas recorded by the cameras included workspaces, sales floors, warehouses and staff rooms so that the customers of notebooksbilliger.de were also affected by the illegal video surveillance.

The company claimed that the video cameras had been established to prevent any criminal offences, and to track the flow of goods in warehouses. However, video surveillance may only be used to investigate crimes if specific individuals are reasonably suspected of committing such offences. Also, many of the recordings were saved for 60 days, which is much longer than necessary.

The DPA specifically notes that companies have to understand that such intensive video surveillance is a major violation of their employees’ rights. It is stated that while businesses often argue that video surveillance can be effectively used to deter criminals, this does not justify the permanent and unjustified interference with the personal rights of their employees.

You can read the text of the press release here.

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Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr