Poland: employers do not have the right to use alcootests to monitor alcohol intake levels

Following a series of GDPR-related modifications to the Labor Code, Poland’s National Data Protection Council had to deal with a barrage of questions on whether employers could use alcootests on its employees. A chink was opened when Article 22 of the Labor Code was modified enabling some employee health related information to be processed by employers, with the employee’s agreement. However the National Council has decided that this provision does not give employers the right to unilaterally test alcohol levels by way of alcootests. At the same time the Council recalled that workplace alcohol testing could only occur under two conditions: (i) the employee is suspected as having consumed alcohol during working hours or has come to work inebriated; (ii) the testing is carried out in the presence of an authority (such as the police), and blood testing is carried out by those qualified to do so, in order to ensure the credibility of the result.

Planet Labor, 9 juillet 2019, n°11215 – www.planetlabor.com