Tag: Germany

ECJ against data retention without any reason or limit

6. April 2022

In the press release of the judgment of 5.4.2022, the ECJ has once again ruled that the collection of private communications data is unlawful without any reason or limit. This reinforces the rulings of 2014, 2016 and 2020, according to which changes are necessary at EU and national level.

In this judgment, the ECJ states that the decision to allow data retention as evidence in the case of a long-standing murder case is for the national court in Ireland.

Questions regarding this issue were submitted in 2020 by Germany, France and Ireland. The EU Advocate General confirmed, in a legally non-binding manner, the incompatibility of national laws with EU fundamental rights.

However, a first exception to data retention resulted from the 2020 judgment, according to which, in the event of a serious threat to national security, storage for a limited period and subject to judicial review was recognized as permissible.

Subsequently, a judgment in 2021 stated that national law must provide clear and precise rules with minimum conditions for the purpose of preventing abuse.

According to the ECJ, an without cause storage with restriction should be allowed in the following cases:

  • When limited to specific individuals or locations;
  • No concrete evidence of crime necessary, local crime rate is sufficient;
  • Frequently visited locations such as airports and train stations;
  • When national laws require the identity of prepaid cardholders to be stored;
  • Quick freeze, an immediate backup and temporary data storage if there is suspicion of crime.

All of these are to be used only to combat serious crime or prevent threats to national security.

In Germany, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann is in favor of a quick freeze solution as an alternative that preserves fundamental rights. However, the EU states are to work on a legally compliant option for data retention despite the ECJ’s criticism of this principle.

(Update) Processing of COVID-19 immunization data of employees in EEA countries

21. January 2022

With COVID-19 vaccination campaigns well under way, employers are faced with the question of whether they are legally permitted to ask employees about their COVID-19 related information and, if so, how that information may be used.

COVID-19 related information, such as vaccination status, whether an employee has recovered from an infection or whether an employee is infected with COVID-19, is considered health data. This type of data is considered particularly sensitive data in most data protection regimes, which may only be processed under strict conditions. Art. 9 (1) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)(EU), Art. 9 (1) UK-GDPR (UK), Art. 5 (II) General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD) (Brazil), para. 1798.140. (b) California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) (California) all consider health-related information as sensitive personal data. However, the question of whether COVID-19-related data may be processed by an employer is evaluated differently, even in the context of the same data protection regime such as the GDPR.

Below, we discuss whether employers in different European Economic Area (EEA) countries are permitted to process COVID-19-related data about their employees.

Austria: The processing of health data in context of the COVID-19 pandemic can be based on Article 9 (2) (b) of the GDPR in conjunction with the relevant provisions on the duty of care (processing for the purpose of fulfilling obligations under labor and social law). Under Austrian labor law, every employer has a duty of care towards its employees, which also includes the exclusion of health hazards in the workplace. However, this only entitles the employer to ask the employee in general terms whether he or she has been examined, is healthy or has been vaccinated. Therefore, if the legislator provides for two other equivalent methods to prove a low epidemiological risk in addition to vaccination, the current view of the data protection authority is that specific questioning about vaccination status is not possible from a data protection perspective. An exception to this is only to be seen in the case of an explicit (voluntary) consent of the employee (Art. 9 (2) a) GDPR), but a voluntary consent is not to be assumed as a rule due to the dependency relationship of the employee.
As of November, employees will be obliged to prove whether they have been vaccinated, recovered from a COVID-19 infection or recently tested negative if they have physical contact with others in enclosed spaces, such as the office.

Austria was the first EU country to introduce mandatory Corona vaccination. From the beginning of February, Corona vaccination will be mandatory for all persons over 18 years of age, otherwise they will face fines of up to 3,600 euros from mid-March.

Belgium: In Belgium, there is no legal basis for the processing of vaccination information of employees by their employer. Article 9 (1) GDPR prohibits the processing of health data unless an explicit exception under Article 9 (2) GDPR applies. Such an exception may be a legal provision or the free and explicit consent of the data subject. Such a legal provision is missing and in the relationship between employee and employer, the employee’s consent is rarely free, as an employee may be under great pressure to give consent. The Belgian data protection authority explicitly denies the employer’s right to ask.

The Belgian government plans to make vaccination mandatory for health workers from April 2022.

Finland: The processing of an employee’s health data is only permitted if it is directly necessary for the employment relationship. The employer must carefully assess whether this necessity exists. It is not possible to deviate from this necessity by obtaining the employee’s consent. The employer may process an employee’s health data if this is necessary for the payment of sick pay or comparable health-related benefits or to establish a legitimate reason for the employee’s absence. The processing of health data is also permitted if an employee expressly requests that his or her ability to work be determined on the basis of health data. In addition, the employer is entitled to process an employee’s health data in situations expressly provided for by law. The employer may require occupational health care to provide statistical data on the immunization coverage of its employees.

France: In general employers may not require their employees to disclose whether they have been vaccinated, unless specific circumstances determined by law apply.

In France, mandatory vaccination has been in effect since mid-September for healthcare workers, i.e., employees of hospitals, retirement and nursing homes, care services, and employees of emergency services and fire departments.

Since July 21st, 2021, a “health passport” is mandatory for recreational and cultural facilities with more than 50 visitors, such as theaters, cinemas, concerts, festivals, sports venues. The health passport is a digital or paper-based record of whether a person has been vaccinated, recovered within 11 days to 6 months, or tested negative within 48 hours. Due to the Health Crisis Management Law No 2021-1040 of August 5, 2021 there are several workplaces where the health pass is mandatory for employees since August 30th, 2021. These include bars, restaurants, seminars, public transport for long journeys (train, bus, plane The health passport is also mandatory for the staff and visitors of hospitals, homes for the elderly, retirement homes, but not for patients who have a medical emergency.Visitors and staff of department stores and shopping malls need to present a health pass in case the prefect of the department decided this necessary. In these cases, the employer is obliged to check if his employees meet their legal obligations. However, the employer should not copy and store the vaccination certificates, but only store the information whether an employee has been vaccinated. Employers who do not fall into these categories are not allowed to process their employees’ vaccination data. In these cases, only occupational health services may process this type of information and the employer may not obtain this information under any circumstances. At most, he may obtain a medical opinion on whether an employee is fit for work.

Germany: Processing of COVID-19-related information is generally only allowed for employers in certain industries. Certain employers named in the law, such as in §§ 23a, 23 Infection Protection Act (IfSG), employers in certain health care facilities (e.g. hospitals, doctors’ offices, rescue services) and § 36 (3) IfSG, such as day care centers, outpatient care services, schools, homeless shelters or correctional facilities, are allowed to process the vaccination status of their employees.

Other employers are generally not permitted to inquire about the vaccination status of employees. But since §28b IfSG came into force on November 24, 2021, employees may only be granted access to company premises if they can prove that they have either been vaccinated, recently recovered or tested negative (so-called “3G status”). In this context, employers may require employees to provide proof of one of the three statuses but may not specifically ask about vaccination status. When it comes to processing and storing information obtained during access control, for data protection reasons, this information must be limited to the fact that employees have access to the premises (taking into account their documented status) and how long this access authorization has existed.

Under current law, while “vaccinated” status does not expire, the information may only be stored for 6 months. “Recently recovered” status is only valid for three months. After that, they must provide other proof that they meet one of the 3G criteria. A negative test is valid for either 24 or 48 hours, depending on the type of test.

Since November 2021, employers are required to verify whether an employee who has been sanctioned with a quarantine for COVID-19 infection was or could have been vaccinated prior to the infection. Under the fourth sentence of Section 56 (1) of the IfSG, an employee is not entitled to continued payment for the period of quarantine if the employee could have avoided the quarantine, e.g., by taking advantage of a vaccination program. The employer must pay the compensation on behalf of the competent authority. As part of this obligation to make an advance payment, the employer is also obliged to check whether the factual requirements for granting the benefits are met. The employer is therefore obliged to obtain information on the vaccination status of its employee before paying the compensation and to decide on this basis whether compensation can be considered in the individual case. The data protection law basis for this processing activity is Section 26 (3) of the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), which permits the processing of special categories of personal data – if this is necessary for the exercise of rights or the fulfillment of legal obligations under labor, social insurance and social protection law and there is no reason to assume that the interests of the data subjects worthy of protection in the exclusion of the processing outweigh this. The Data Protection Conference, an association of German data protection authorities, states that processing the vaccination status of employees on the basis of consent is only possible if the consent was given voluntarily and thus legally valid, Section 26 (3) sentence 2 and (2) BDSG. Due to the relationship of superiority and subordination existing between employer and employee, there are regularly doubts about the voluntariness and thus the legal validity of the employees’ consent.

If employers are allowed to process the vaccination status of their employees, they should not copy the certificates, but only check to see if an employee has been vaccinated.

A mandatory vaccination for all german citizens is being discussed.

Greece: Corona vaccination became mandatory for nursing home staff in mid-August and for the healthcare sector on September 1. Since mid-September, all unvaccinated professionals have had to present a negative Corona rapid test twice a week – at their own expense – when they go to work.

Italy: Since October 15, Italy has become the first country in the EEA to require all workers to present a “green passport” at the workplace. This document records whether a person has been vaccinated, recovered, or tested. A general vaccination requirement has been in effect for health care workers since May, and employees in educational institutions have been required to present the green passport since September. In mid-October, mandatory vaccination was extended to employees of nursing homes.

Netherlands: Currently, there is no specific legislation that allows employers to process the vaccination data of their employees. Government guidelines for employers state that neither testing nor vaccination can be mandated for employees. Only occupational health services and company physicians are allowed to process vaccination data, for example, when employees are absent or reinstated. The Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport has announced that he will allow the health sector to determine the vaccination status of its employees. He also wants to examine whether and how this can be done in other work situations. Currently, employers can only offer voluntary testing in the workplace, but are not allowed to document or enforce the results of such tests.

Spain: Employers are allowed to ask employees if they have been vaccinated, but only if it is proportionate and necessary for the employer to fulfill its legal obligation to ensure health and safety in the workplace. However, employees have the right to refuse to answer this question. Before entering the workplace, employees may be asked to provide a negative test or proof of vaccination if the occupational health and safety provider deems it necessary for the particular workplace.

Data Breach made 136,000 COVID-19 test results publicly accessible

18. March 2021

Personal health data are considered a special category of personal data under Art. 9 of the GDPR and are therefore given special protections. A group of IT experts, including members of the German Chaos Computer Club (CCC), has now revealed security gaps in the software for test centres by which more than 136,000 COVID-19 test results of more than 80,000 data subjects have apparently been unprotected on the internet for weeks.

The IT-Security experts’ findings concern the software “SafePlay” of the Austrian company Medicus AI. Many test centres use this software to allocate appointments and to make test results digitally available to those tested. In fact, more than 100 test centres and mobile test teams in Germany and Austria are affected by the recent data breach. These include public facilities in Munich, Berlin, Mannheim as well as fixed and temporary testing stations in companies, schools and daycare centres.

In order to view the test results unlawfully, one only needed to create an account for a COVID-19 test. The URL for the test result contained the number of the test. If this number was simply counted up or down, the “test certificates” of other people became freely accessible. In addition to the test result, the test certificate also contained the name, date of birth, private address, nationality and ID number of the person concerned.

It remains unresolved whether the vulnerabilities have been exploited prior to the discovery by the CCC. The CCC notified both Medius AI and the Data Protection Authorities about the leak which led to a quick response by the company. However, IT experts and Privacy-focused NGOs commented that Medicus AI was irresponsible and grossly negligent with respect to their security measures leading to the potential disclosure of an enormous amount of sensitive personal health data.

H&M receives record-breaking 35 Mio Euro GDPR Fine in Germany

21. October 2020

In the beginning of October, the Hamburg Data Protection Commissioner (“HmbBfDI”) imposed a record-breaking 35,258,707.95 Euro GDPR fine on the German branch of the Swedish clothing-retail giant H&M. It is the highest fine, based on a GDPR violation, a German Data Protection Authority has ever issued.

Since 2014, the management of the H&M service centre in Nuremberg extensively monitored the private lives of their employees in various ways. Following holidays and sick leaves of employees, team leaders would conduct so-called “Welcome Back Talks” in which they recorded employees’ holiday experiences, symptoms of illnesses and medical diagnoses. Some H&M supervisors gathered a broad data base of their employees’ private lives as they recorded details on family issues and religious beliefs from one-on-one talks and even corridor conversations. The recordings had a high level of detail and were updated over time and in some cases were shared with up to 50 other managers throughout the whole company. The H&M supervisors also used this Personal Data to create profiles of their employees and to base future employment decisions and measures on this information. The clandestine data collection only became known as a result of a configuration error in 2019 when the notes were accessible company-wide for a few hours.

After the discovery, the H&M executives presented the HmbBfDI a comprehensive concept on improving Data Protection at their Nuremberg sub-branch. This includes newly appointing a Data Protection coordinator, monthly Data Protection status updates, more strongly communicated whistleblower protection and a consistent process for granting data subject rights. Furthermore, H&M has apologised to their employees and paid the affected people a considerable compensation.

With their secret monitoring system at the service centre in Nuremberg, H&M severely violated the GDPR principles of lawfulness, fairness, and transparency of processing pursuant to Art. 5 no. 1 lit. a) and Art. 6 GDPR because they did not have a legal basis for collecting these Personal Data from their employees. The HmbBfDI commented in his statement on the magnitude of the fine saying that “the size of the fine imposed is appropriate and suitable to deter companies from violating the privacy of their employees”.

Germany Update: Covid-19 Tracing App launched in mid June

18. June 2020

On June 16th, 2020 Germany has introduced their new COVID-19 tracing app called “Corona-Warn-App” and released it for download. Within the first day, over six million citizens downloaded the app, and the government hopes to see the number increase for better effectiveness of the method.

As an Open Source project from the start, giving unhindered access to the programming code, it was able to work on safety and data protection issues throughout the seven weeks of its development, as well as keep the entire process transparent to future users.

Overall, the first impressions on the side of data protection have been good, with the Federal Data Protection Officer (Bundesdatenschutzbeauftragter) Ulrich Kelber stating to the Saarbrückener Zeitung that the app “gives a solid impression”, but he would like to “have seen a Data Protection Impact Assessment before the launch”.

The data protection aspects

The German contact tracing app claims to put the highest importance on data protection, and the transparency for the users to know what happens with their data.

Upon the download, the app gives the chance to read through a thorough privacy policy, giving the user all the information necessary to be able to understand and consent to the use of their data. In effect, the personal data collected and stored remains minimal: the consent to the usage of the Exposure Notification Framework, TANs for testing verification, as well as consent for a daily upload of the diagnostics key, which is only stored for 14 days.

The app, developed by SAP and Telekom, uses Bluetooth technology to judge exposure based on two criteria: the distance between two smartphones and the duration of the encounter. If the threshold requirements of those two criteria are met, the phones exchange a random key code, which are stored for 14 days on the phone devices, and checked for positive test results there. It will then tell you if your exposure is low or high risk, and will give you suggestions on how to act based on the level of risk to exposure. Due to this procedure, there is no need for the collection of personal information regarding the identity of the person. Especially, the notification in case of exposure is not in real time, making it impossible to securely identify the coronavirus positive person that has been encountered.

Furthermore, the app not only puts an emphasis on anonymity, but also on voluntariness. Whether and how you want to use the app is entirely up to the user. The user may disable to Exposure Notification Framework, and decide for themselves if they want to share the results of a test with the app. This comes, of course, with limitations to the effectiveness of the app, but it gives the user more control over his own data shared.

One of the current deficits is that due to the lack of hardware systems, the testing laboratories cannot verify the test results through the users scanning a QR-code, as originally planned. However, in the meantime, a notification hotline has been set up, although this raises data protection concerns due to the fact that it could be taken advantage of or abused.

Lastly, one of the big data protection aspects, which has caused a big stir in the cases of the tracing apps, is the storage of the information. The Corona-Warn-App stores the data of the users in a decentralized manner, which means that there is no direct upload to a cloud, but instead the entire process happens on the users’ devices. This shields from potential misuse of the data by parties involved in the development as well as the government, and was recommended by the European Parliament and the European Data Protection Board as the safer storage option for these types of contact tracing apps.

Overview

While the app is only in its first few days of launch, it has received a lot of praise for the way it handles the different problems with data protection and IT security. It remains to be seen if the necessary 60% of citizens using the contact tracing app can be mobilized in order to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Future plans involve cross border cooperation with different countries and their own contact tracing apps in order to ensure the practicability and effectiveness of these apps, as the containment of the pandemic is an international venture.

Overall, the Corona-Warn-App seems to be a decent development despite its hurried creation period. However, at this point it is only the beginning of the contact tracing app, and it remains to be seen how the developers incorporate fixes for upcoming problems.

Germany: Large Data leak reveals Personal Data of more than 3 Million Customers

27. January 2020

The German car rental company Buchbinder is responsible for leaking Personal Data of more than 3 Million customers from all over Europe. The data leak exposed more than 10 Terabyte of sensitive customer data over several weeks without the company noticing it.

A German cybersecurity firm was executing routine network scans when it found the data leak. The firm reported it twice to Buchbinder via e-mail, but did not receive a reply. After that, the cybersecurity firm reported the leak to the Bavarian Data Protection Authority (DPA) and informed the German computer magazine c’t and newspaper DIE ZEIT.

According to c’t, a configuration error of a Backup-Server was the cause of the leak. The Personal Data exposed included customers’ names, private addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers, rental data, bank details, accident reports, legal documents, as well as Buchbinder employees’ e-mails and access data to internal networks.

The data leak is particularly serious because of the vast amount of leaked Personal Data that could easily be abused through Spam e-mails, Fraud, Phishing, or Identity theft. It is therefore likely that the German DPA will impose a GDPR fine on the company in the future.

Buchbinder released a press statement apologising for the data leak and promising to enhance the level of their defense and cybersecurity system.

Germany: Telecommunications provider receives a 9.5 Million Euro GDPR fine

16. December 2019

The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) has imposed a fine of 9.55 Million Euro on the major telecommunication services provider 1&1 Telecom GmbH (1&1). This is the second multimillion Euro fine that the Data Protection Authorities in Germany have imposed. The first fine of this magnitude (14.5 Million Euro) was imposed last month on a real estate company.

According to the BfDI, the reason for the fine for 1&1 was an inadequate authentication procedure within the company’s customer service department, because any caller to 1&1’s customer service could obtain extensive information on personal customer data, only by providing a customer’s name and date of birth. The particular case that was brought to the Data Protection Authority’s attention was based on a caller’s request of the new mobile phone number of an ex-partner.

The BfDI found that this authentication procedure stands in violation of Art. 32 GDPR, which sets out a company’s obligation to take appropriate technical and organisational measures to systematically protect the processing of personal data.

After the BfDI had pointed 1&1 to the their deficient procedure, the company cooperated with the authorities. In a first step, the company changed their two-factor authentication procedure to a three step authentication procedure in their customer service department. Furthermore, they are working on a new enhanced authentication system in which each customer will receive a personal service PIN.

In his statement, the BfDI explained that the fine was necessary because the violation posed a risk to the personal data of all customers of 1&1. But because of the company’s cooperation with the authorities, the BfDI set the fine at the lower end of the scale.

1&1 has deemed the fine “absolutely disproportionate” and has announced to file a suit against the penalty notice by the BfDI.

Berlin commissioner for data protection imposes fine on real estate company

6. November 2019

On October 30th, 2019, the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information issued a fine of around 14.5 million euros against the real estate company Deutsche Wohnen SE for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

During on-site inspections in June 2017 and March 2019, the supervisory authority determined that the company used an archive system for the storage of personal data of tenants that did not provide for the possibility of removing data that was no longer required. Personal data of tenants were stored without checking whether storage was permissible or even necessary. In individual cases, private data of the tenants concerned could therefore be viewed, even though some of them were years old and no longer served the purpose of their original survey. This involved data on the personal and financial circumstances of tenants, such as salary statements, self-disclosure forms, extracts from employment and training contracts, tax, social security and health insurance data and bank statements.

After the commissioner had made the urgent recommendation to change the archive system in the first test date of 2017, the company was unable to demonstrate either a cleansing of its database nor legal reasons for the continued storage in March 2019, more than one and a half years after the first test date and nine months after the GDPR came into force. Although the enterprise had made preparations for the removal of the found grievances, nevertheless these measures did not lead to a legal state with the storage of personal data. Therefore the imposition of a fine was compelling because of a violation of article 25 Abs. 1 GDPR as well as article 5 GDPR for the period between May 2018 and March 2019.

The starting point for the calculation of fines is, among other things, the previous year’s worldwide sales of the affected companies. According to its annual report for 2018, the annual turnover of Deutsche Wohnen SE exceeded one billion euros. For this reason, the legally prescribed framework for the assessment of fines for the established data protection violation amounted to approximately 28 million euros.

For the concrete determination of the amount of the fine, the commissioner used the legal criteria, taking into account all burdening and relieving aspects. The fact that Deutsche Wohnen SE had deliberately set up the archive structure in question and that the data concerned had been processed in an inadmissible manner over a long period of time had a particularly negative effect. However, the fact that the company had taken initial measures to remedy the illegal situation and had cooperated well with the supervisory authority in formal terms was taken into account as a mitigating factor. Also with regard to the fact that the company was not able to prove any abusive access to the data stored, a fine in the middle range of the prescribed fine framework was appropriate.

In addition to sanctioning this violation, the commissioner imposed further fines of between 6,000 and 17,000 euros on the company for the inadmissible storage of personal data of tenants in 15 specific individual cases.

The decision on the fine has not yet become final. Deutsche Wohnen SE can lodge an appeal against this decision.

Data Incident at H&M in Germany

28. October 2019

According to a report of the ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung‘ (FAZ), personal data of H&M employees working in the customer center of H&M in Nuremberg, were leaked to other H&M employees who should not have access to this kind of data.

The concerned personal data result of personnel interviews between employees and mangers. The managers stored the personal information, inter alia health data and information on the private life of employees, in files which should have been only accessible for managers, but according to the report, also other H&M employees besides the managers could access the files and thus the confidential employee data.

At the customer center in Nuremberg work several hundreds employees. These were informed by the board of H&M on Wednesday last week, October 23rd 2019, about the data incident. On the following day the board announced, that all stored in the files, was deleted and that measures were taken to ensure data security. Additionally, the data protection officer of H&M in Nuremberg as well as the competent data protection authority were notified about the data incident.

Category: Data Breach · GDPR
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Germany: Data of smart home devices as evidence in court?!

11. June 2019

According to a draft resolution for the upcoming conference of interior ministers of the 16 German federal states, data from smart home devices are to be admitted as evidence in court. The ministers of the federal states believe that the digital traces could help to solve crimes in the future, especially capital crimes and terrorist threats.

The interior ministers want to remove constitutional concerns, because the mentioned data is of great interest for the security authorities. According to the draft resolution, judicial approval will be sufficient in the future. However, domestic politicians expect criticism and resistance from the data protection commissioners of both the federal states and the federal government.

Smart home devices are technical devices such as televisions, refrigerators or voice assistants that are connected to the Internet. They are also summarized under the term Internet of the Things (IoT), can be controlled via the smartphone and make daily life easier for the user. Many data are stored and processed.

We have already reported several times about smart home devices, including the fact that in the USA data from smart home devices have already helped to solve crimes (in German).

It cannot be denied that data from smart home devices can (under certain circumstances) help to solve crimes, but it must be neglected that due to the technical design a 100% reliable statement cannot be made. A simple example is this: whether the landlord was actually at home at the time in question or still on his way home, or just wanted to give the impression that he was at home while in fact on the other side of the world, cannot be determined on the basis of data from smart home devices. For example, the ability to use the smartphone to control the light/heat management allows the user to control it from anywhere at any time.

In addition, it should be taken into consideration that such interventions, or the mere possibility of intervention, may violate a person’s right to informational self-determination, and it is precisely the protection of this constitutionally protected right that data protection is committed to.

Update: The 210th Conference of the interior ministers has come to an end in the meantime and the approval of smart home data as evidence in court has been rejected. The resolutions of the conference can be found here (in German).

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