USB Lavoro Privato Puglia – €50,000 Fine (Italy, 2025)

An automotive company (Magna PT S.p.A., the data controller) asked its employees (the data subjects) to undergo “return to work interviews” (“RTWI”) upon returning after leave. Interviews were carried out by the direct superior of the data subjects. The purpose of the interview was to support data subjects in their return to their workplace and gather information on possible shortcomings of the working environment in order to later address them. The questions included, among others, whether the employee's leave was caused by their work, whether their health condition got worse in time, and whether their doctor prescribed specific accomodations or limitations. The controller claimed that participation in the interview was voluntary. Answers given in the interview were manually transcribed in a form and forwarded to HR. HR would then assess the modules and consider possible action to address any issues, along with the data subjects’ superior or the company doctor. Forms were stored for a maximum of ten years. In practice, the controller periodically reviewed the forms and destroyed the ones it did not consider relevant anymore. At the time of the investigation, no form had been stored for longer than 1 year. In 2021 a workers’ union (USB Lavoro Privato Puglia) challenged the lawfulness of this practice by filing a complaint with the DPA. The DPA investigated the complaint two years later. The DPA held that the controller violated Articles 5(1)(c)(e), 6, 9, 13 and 88 GDPR as well as Article 113 of the Italian privacy code. The DPA issued a €50,000 fine and ordered the erasure of the subjects’ data. = The controller stated that the processing relied on the legal basis of consent. In this regard, the controller observed that while consent cannot generally be freely given by employees, EDPB and WP29 Guidelines leave some room for consent when the employee's refusal has no negative consequences for the employee. The controller argued that this was precisely the case of