Germany: after one year waiting, the government coalition agrees on the draft law on the protection of employees’ private data

The agreement signed last week by the experts of the government coalition parties on the bill for the protection of employees’ private data is shortly going to put an end to a particularly long legislative procedure.  The need for a law to protect private data in the workplace was born in 2008 and 2009 after several scandals (see our dispatch No.  080275 and 100364) at Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bahn or Lidl.  After amending the general law on the protection of private data (see our dispatch No.  090806) in 2009, the Federal Government adopted a special bill on August 25, 2010 (see our dispatch No.  091071).  However, this bill, introduced in Parliament in February 2011, didn’t please unions, who cared about improving employees’ protection, or employers, who thought that the text’s provisions would prevent them from combating corruption and criminal acts in businesses (see our dispatch No.  100606).  The new text, which will be sent to the Bundestag very soon, is halfway between these two stances.