Court case 7 Sa 635/23 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2025)
General GDPR enforcement action
This case relates to broader data protection obligations, not specifically to cookie or consent banner compliance. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.
A German court ruled that an employer's use of a private detective to monitor an employee's activities was allowed under data protection laws. The employer suspected the employee of misusing company time and found evidence of work violations. This case illustrates the balance between employee privacy and employer rights.
What happened
The employer hired a private detective to observe an employee suspected of misusing company time.
Who was affected
The employee who was monitored and ultimately fired was affected.
What the authority found
The court held that the employer's actions were permissible under data protection laws, as there was a documented reason to suspect wrongdoing.
Why this matters
This ruling sets a precedent for how employers can monitor employees under certain conditions. It reminds businesses to document their reasons for monitoring to ensure compliance with privacy laws.
National Law Articles
The employer of a company suspected that his employee was pursuing private activities during working hours, using the company car for private purposes and not recording this as break time. The employer then hired a private detective to observe his employee on individual days. In November 2022, the detective observed him on five days and revealed multiple work violations. In particular, the employee took longer breaks at the bakery, went to private photo shoots or went to his girlfriend's place. As he worked as a ticket inspector, it was impossible for him to continue working during these periods. In order to definitively establish the suspicion, the detective was to observe the employee over a fixed period from 1 December 2022 to 16 December 2022. During this period, the employee was photographed, documented and a GPS was attached to his company car. The detective and the employer were able to establish that he had committed working time fraud totaling almost 26 hours. As a result, he was fired. The employee filed an action for protection against dismissal under national labor law, the employer counterclaimed the costs for the private detective. The court ruled that the observation of the employee by the detective was admissible under [https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bdsg/englisch_bdsg.html#p0222 Section 26(1) of the Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz - BDSG)] and that in any case there was no prohibition on the use of evidence even if the observation was inadmissible. The second sentence of this provision reads: "Employees’ personal data may be processed to detect crimes only if there is a documented reason to believe the data subject has committed a crime while employed, the processing of such data is necessary to investigate the crime and is not outweighed by the data subject’s legitimate interest in not processing the data, and in particular the type and extent are not disproportionate to the reason." The court held, that th
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case 7 Sa 635/23 in DE
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case 7 Sa 635/23 - Germany (2025). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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