Germany To Grant Privacy At the Workplace

An anonymous reader writes "The German government is proposing a bill declaring that employees have an expectation of privacy at the workplace (translated article). Among other provisions, the bill would ban employers from surveilling their employees by cameras or logging and reading their emails. Also, potential employers would not be allowed to view an applicant's profile at Facebook or any other social network that hasn't actually been made for this purpose."

Comments

Re:When did Western society get so stupid?

[Forbman]

...as opposed to the corporate fascists in the US advocating the exact opposite (monitoring employee's off-hours lives via Facebook, etc), thin-skinned managers and corporate officers, etc doing likewise? Granted, there are industries where there are needs (having worked for quite awhile at a company that blocked web-based internet mail, such as Gmail), where it would be entirely possible to cut-and-paste a customer's (or a few million) PII into a message somewhere, and yet the company has a legal mandate, because of the industry (in my case, SEC and other financial regulations, but HIPPA is another), to at some level be able to monitor or reactively look for such violations through its servers.

This isn't even with regards to protecting confidential corporate information or trade secrets.

Re:Their equipment, their choice.

[dave420]

Christ. Not one for reading, huh? The bill is pushing for the privacy of workers from being spied on or having their communications intercepted. It's not about installing a white-list or some sort of internet filter.

Re:Their equipment, their choice.

[pgmrdlm]

Watch your unemployment go up Tom. Thank you for your asshole attitude. These companies just found another reason to outsource the work to third world nations.

You thought you were the object of slavery in your competitive wage job because of rules? Guess what, your fucking attitude just made you the object of the unemployed

Re:Their equipment, their choice.

[pgmrdlm]

times are changing asshole. Say goodbye to jobs because you don't respect company property.

Re:Their equipment, their choice.

[cbraescu1]

The most important is that companies in Germany elect a workers council, democratically elected representatives of the employees (you do like democracy, don't you?) which have a right to have a say in such matters.

This sounds exactly like corporatism, the economic side of the fascism. "Democracy" inside a company, on other people's money? You must be brainwashed...

First, you can review performance, set goals, measure them, and all that.

You can't review performance if (1) the reviewee can't be fired and (2) the state is banning proper documenting of their work. How do you review a slacked who knows he can't be fired and his job is 100% computer-based, when you're not allowed to monitor computer and Internet usage?

Second, of course you can fire. You just can't do it without reason

Funny how reasonable/unreasonable is not left to the firing person, or to the employment contract, but to a special work courthosue fully bending to the will of the unions.

Three, just like pretty much everywhere else in the world, it is idiotic to make one blanket statement about the whole country. There are certainly companies where your words are pretty much true, and there are others where employees would die laughing if they read them.

My words are "pretty true" when saying that I believe you are a brainwashed fascist, corporatist moron who's dividing his own people into "citizens" and "sub-citizens". Shame on you.