BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

Republic, 26 the Act of 29 August 1997 on the Protection of Personal Data in Poland, 27 Romanian Act No. 677/2001 to ensure the confidentiality of employee data of having a private character, 28 and Act No. 122/2013 Coll. on the protection of personal data and on changing of and amending other acts in the Slovak Republic. Respective national orders protect the right to privacy in criminal codes as well. 29 5. Duty to Work During Working Hours The ordinary laws mentioned grant an employee protection of their privacy in the workplace. Employers shall respect employee dignity and human rights. Even so, an employee’s primary goal is to meet their statutory obligations. Being hired to render services and paid in return throughout the employment relationship, an employee is obliged to perform dependent work. Allowing employees to access online social media profiles during work hours can be a distraction. Employees may lose valuable work time playing games, talking to friends, and updating their own personal profiles. Therefore, the law provides a clear rule to keep employees away from the distraction of social media networks. In accordance with Section 301 of the Czech Labour Code, Article 100 of the Polish Labour Code, Section 39 II of the Romanian Labour Code, and Article 81 of the Slovak Labour Code, an employee has to work responsibly and properly, to be at the workplace at the beginning of working time, to utilise the working time for assigned work, to leave only after the termination of the working time, to protect employer property against damage, loss, destruction and abuse, and to refrain from acting in a manner contradictory to the justified interests of the employer. In short, an employee shall work and not relax during working time. This fundamental aspect of labour law has been upheld by the ECHR in Bărbulescu 30 in accordance with previous mainstream opinions in Romania, Poland, 31 and Czech supreme court decisions. 32 The ECtHR considered the existence of employer internal regulations that prohibited employees from using company computers for personal purposes as a strong argument 26 Cf. MATEJKA, J.: Internet jako objekt práva, hledání rovnováhy autonomie a soukromí (the Internet as the Object of Law) Prague: CZ.NIC, 2013, z.s.p.o., p. 150. 27 Unified text: Journal of Laws of 2002 No. 101 item 926 with amendments. 28 There are two other special laws concerning the protection of privacy: Act No. 506/2004 on the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector and Act No. 365/2002 on electronic commerce. 31 See the opinion expressed by the Labour Law Department of the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Policy in a letter dated 1 August 2007 (DPR I-0712-6/JS/MF/07), which was confirmed by the stance of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy on 24 January 2008 (DPR-I-0712-6/JS/MF/07). The Ministry held that such entitlement of the employer resulted directly from an obligation to “organize work ensuring full use of working time”, which is governed in Art. 94 section 2 of the Labour Code, and that an employee who was using business email for personal purposes was breaching an obligation to work diligently and scrupulously. See http://www.schoenherr.eu/de/knowledge/knowledge-detail/poland-internal-employers- regulations/ (Accessed 10 December 2017). 32 Decision 16 August 2012, file number 21 Cdo 1771/2011 and decision 7 August 2014, file number 21 Cdo 747/2013. 29 In Romania, see Section 195 of the Criminal Code. 30 Judgment Bărbulescu, marginal numbers 57, 58 and 59.

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