German Court Rules Bosses Can't Use Keyboard-Tracking Software To Spy On Workers (thelocal.de)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Local: The Federal Labour Court ruled on Thursday that evidence collected by a company through keystroke-tracking software could not be used to fire an employee, explaining that such surveillance violates workers' personal rights. The complainant had been working as a web developer at a media agency in North Rhine-Westphalia since 2011 when the company sent an email out in April 2015 explaining that employees' complete "internet traffic" and use of the company computer systems would be logged and permanently saved. Company policy forbade private use of the computers. The firm then installed keylogger software on company PCs to monitor keyboard strokes and regularly take screenshots. Less than a month later, the complainant was called in to speak with his boss about what the company had discovered through the spying software. Based on their findings, they accused him of working for another company while at work, and of developing a computer game for them. [...] So the programmer took his case to court, arguing that the evidence used against him had been collected illegally. The Federal Labour Court agreed with this argument, stating in the ruling that the keylogger software was an unlawful way to control employees. The judges added that using such software could be legitimate if there was a concrete suspicion beforehand of a criminal offense or serious breach of work duties.

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Re:TL;DR version

[houghi]

Same in Belgium. First you need to inform the employees what you intend to do and why. e.g. recording calls from customers MUST be recorded. It also means that you not only must inform the customer, but also the employee.
You can do screenshots and even complete recordings of the screen, but only during the conversation with the customer. And again the employee must be informed with that and even needs to give his OK. Yes, I have had people who refused. Those people did not last long and that had nothing to do with the fact they refused. It was just not a the right job for both of them.

There are also serious restrictions on filming employees.

I believe that this all comes because Europe and the US see privacy in a different thing.
In the US everything is public, unless it is private. In the EU everything is private, unless it is public.
This is obviously not 100%. You could compare it a bit with opt-in vs. opt-out.

That means that even in a public place you will have some sort of right on privacy. Your data belongs to you and can not just be sold to others.

If a friend asks for my phone number at a third mutual friend, they will not just give it. They will ask me permission to give it.
That means that my N+1 has my phone number, but not HR. There is no need for them to have it.

So it is very different from what would be standard in the US.