Germany Getting Ready To Create A Law To Protect The Privacy Of Its Citizens On-line

Germany is getting ready to take a stand to protect its citizen's privacy and wants to create a law that would ban employers from mining information on prospective job candidates from social networking sites such as Facebook.  A spokesperson for Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior says, "There is a draft of the bill, which essentially says employers would be able to use publicly accessible information about applicants drawn from the Internet but not from social networking sites that serve 'communication purposes' and would include sites such as Facebook, MySpace etc." However, social websites related to work, such as Xing and LinkedIn, can be used by employers.

The German Parliament is due to discuss the bill and if the draft act is passed companies could in theory face fines of up to €300,000 (US$381,000). The aim of the draft bill is to stop private information becoming public and the government acknowledges that some of the new regulations might be complicated to enact and difficult to enforce, if a breach of duty can't be proved; because it would have to be shown that the information in question ended up in a personal file.  Though, the German government expects that the managers as all other people will be law-abiding. The Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said "The new law would be beneficial for both parties".

Undercover spies and hidden video cameras - sounds like an espionage thriller film, but for some German employees, it's a reality and just another day at work. As in recent years, a series of workplace spying scandals have come to light, several of which involved high-profile companies like the telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom, the discount retailer Lidl and the national railway operator Deutsche Bahn.

A central point of the proposal is that employers can no longer use  video surveillance on workers without their knowledge.  Retailers in Germany have been known to use hidden cameras to catch employees they believe are stealing. According to the new bill, video surveillance will be forbidden in private areas such as changing rooms, break rooms and bathrooms.  Employers will still be permitted to use cameras as anti-shoplifting measures in public areas, such as around the cash register or the entrance to a supermarket.  de Maiziere said, "What an employer can't do is befriend someone on a closed social network and then use the 'friend' status to access private data and then use that information against the applicant".

Germany has been aggressive in analyzing online services given the country's strict privacy laws, which came as a result of intense secret surveillance by the government during the Nazi regime. This is the German government's latest attempt to address privacy concerns about online services including social networks and Google 'Street View'. If the bill is passed into law, Germany will become the first country to slap legal restrictions on the use of personal information from private social networking sites.

Photo Credit: Will Palmer