German Federal Data Protection Act

The German federal labor court held in a recent decision (Bundesarbeitsgericht, 27 July 2017 – case no. 2 AZR 681/16) that the use of evidence obtained through the use of key logger software is not permitted under current German privacy law, if there is no suspicion of a criminal offense. Such monitoring is only allowed when an employer has a concrete suspicion of a criminal offense by an employee or any other serious breach of duty in a specific case. This decision is understood as a general guidance where the highest labor court gave guidance on secret employee monitoring.