Municipality of Malý Lapáš – Court Ruling (Slovakia, 2025)

A kindergarten teacher (hereinafter, the teacher) has been working for the Municipality of Malý Lapáš (hereinafter, the municipal school) since January 2016. On 4 July 2023, the controller immediately terminated the teacher's employment on the basis of a serious breach of work discipline. The municipal school relied on two incidents. First, the teacher had allegedly left the workplace shortly before the end of her working hours without the consent of her superior. Second, she had published photographs of children from the kindergarten on her private Facebook profile. The photographs were taken during an overnight kindergarten event. The teacher published seven photographs alongside a post thanking a local pizzeria for providing sponsored pizza to the children. She maintained that she had tried to avoid showing the children's faces and that her intention was merely to thank the sponsor. The municipal school argued that the photographs constituted personal data and that the teacher was not authorised to publish them on her private Facebook account. Parents provided an informed consent at the beginning of each school year which permitted the publication of photographs through specified channels, including the municipality's website, the kindergarten's official website, EduPage and within the kindergarten premises. This consent did not cover publication on an employee's private Facebook profile. The teacher admitted that she did not have prior written consent from the children's legal representatives for publication on her private account. She considered the general informed consent sufficient and claimed that the parents had been aware of the planned publication. After the termination of her employment, she attempted to obtain additional consent from the parents. The teacher challenged the immediate termination before the Court and requested a declaration that the termination was invalid as well as compensation for lost wages. The Court upheld the teacher's claim and declared the immediate termination of her employment invalid. Regarding the photographs, the Court held that the overnight kindergarten event was connected to the teacher's employment. She therefore remained bound by her confidentiality obligations under [https://dataprotection.gov.sk/files/en/legislation-guidelines/legislation-case-law/national-legislation/2024_11_15_act_18_2018_on_personal_data_protection_and_amending_and_suplementing_certain_acts_as_amended-docx.pdf § 79 Act No. 18/2018 on Personal Data Protection]. The Court considered that, under Article 5 GDPR, the publication of the children's photographs on the teacher's private Facebook profile required prior consent from their legal representatives. The general informed consent signed by the parents did not cover publication on a private social-media account, as it was limited to specified channels used by the kindergarten. Since the teacher had published the photographs without prior parental consent, despite having received data-protection training and being bound by confidentiality obligations, the Court found that she had breached her data-protection and employment duties, including [https://www.employment.gov.sk/files/praca-zamestnanost/vztah-zamestnanca-zamestnavatela/zakonnik-prace/zakonnik-prace-anglicka-verzia-labour-code-full-wording-2012.pdf § 81(f) Labour Code]. However, the Court held that the breach was not serious enough to justify immediate termination under [https://www.employment.gov.sk/files/praca-zamestnanost/vztah-zamestnanca-zamestnavatela/zakonnik-prace/zakonnik-prace-anglicka-verzia-labour-code-full-wording-2012.pdf § 68(1)(b) Labour Code]. It considered the circumstances of the publication, the teacher's intention to thank a sponsor, her attempt to limit the children's identifiability, her previous work record, the absence of proven complaints and the lack of demonstrated damage to the municipal school. The Court also found that the municipal school had not sufficiently proven that the teacher's early departure from the workplace constituted a serious breach of work discipline. Consequently, the Court held that immediate termination was disproportionate and declared it invalid. The claim for compensation for lost wages was separated into independent proceedings. No GDPR fine or other data-protection corrective measure was imposed.