According to the German Federal Labor Court, Germany’s highest court for employment disputes, German employers are not allowed to monitor employees in the workplace without a concrete suspicion of a criminal violation or, in some cases, a serious breach of duty (judgment dated July 27, 2017, case ref. 2 AZR 681/16). This means that employer monitoring of an employee’s computer usage without a concrete suspicion, including the use of keylogging software that records all keyboard entries made at a desktop computer does not comply with German data privacy laws. Courts may exclude evidence obtained under violation of German data privacy laws from their proceedings.

Facts of the Case

In the case, a web developer filed a dismissal law suit against a termination notice issued by its employer. The employer had installed a so-called keylogger on the employee’s business computer. The employer did this to prove its assumption that the employee had dedicated major parts of his working time to private activities. This keylogger software monitored and stored all keyboard entries for a significant period of time. In addition, the software periodically took and stored screenshots of the employee’s desktop.