There is no breach of privacy law in using data contained in a trade union mailing list for disciplinary purposes, when such list was delivered to the employer by one of the recipients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Court of Cassation, Section 1, Judgement, 31 May 2021, no.15161<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The case concerned an employee of a local health authority and company representative of a trade union organization who, following a report to the company by one of the participants in the union\u2019s mailing list, was served with a disciplinary notice regarding the offensive content of several e-mails he had sent to people on the mailing list in relation to company management. Non c’\u00e8 violazione della normativa privacy nel caso di utilizzo a fini disciplinari dei dati presenti in una\u00a0mailing list\u00a0sindacale, consegnati al datore da uno dei destinatari della comunicazione Corte di cassazione, sez. I, ordinanza 31 maggio 2021, n.15161 Il caso riguarda il dipendente di\u00a0un’azienda sanitaria\u00a0locale e segretario aziendale di un\u2019organizzazione sindacale a cui, a seguito […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe employee applied to the Data Protection Authority to block the processing of the data, claiming that the use of e-mail correspondence for disciplinary purposes was a violation of the Data Privacy Code by the employer.
\n\nThe claim was considered unfounded by the Data Protection Authority, in whose opinion \u201cthe above-mentioned e-mail communications related to \u2018personal data\u2019 and were subject to the rules of the Data Privacy Code, but their use was not unlawful, having been transmitted to the company by another person on the mailing list, to obtain an assessment in disciplinary matters; the company had not played any role in the collection of the data, nor had it carried out any investigations or asked any employees about it, but had simply processed it within the scope of the disciplinary powers vested in the company\u201c.\nThe employee appealed the decision.
\nThe Court rejected the appeal, and the employee went on to file an action in the Supreme Court.
\nAccording to the Supreme Court, \u201ce-mail messages fall within the notion of personal data\u201d. Article 4(1)(b) of the Data Privacy Code, considers personal data \u201cany information relating to a natural person, identified or identifiable, even indirectly, by reference to any other information (\u2026), to which the code assimilates the identification data that allow the direct identification of the person concerned\u201c.
\nThus, \u201cthe use of the expression \u2018any information\u2019 in the definition of the concept of \u2018personal data\u2019 in Article 2(a) of Directive 95\/46 reflects the EU legislature\u2019s aim of giving a broad meaning to that concept, which is not limited to sensitive or private information but potentially covers all types of information whether objective or subjective, in the form of opinions or assessments, provided that they \u2018concern\u2019 the interested party\u2019 (judgment of 20 December 2017, C-434\/16, p. 33-34).\u201d
\nThe expression \u201cany information\u201d continues the Court of Cassation, \u201cin the Directive clearly signals the legislator\u2019s desire to define a broad concept of personal data\u201d. From the point of view \u201cof the nature of the information, the concept of personal data covers any kind of statement about a person; it may therefore include \u2018objective\u2019 information such as the presence of a given substance in a person\u2019s bloodstream, but also \u2018subjective\u2019 information such as opinions or assessments (because) their use may have an impact on that person\u2019s rights and interests, taking into account all the circumstances of the case\u201d.
\nAnd therefore, the Court of Cassation, after having clarified that the data in question are personal data, does not find \u201cany unlawful processing of such data\u201c, since the company\u2019s behaviour \u201cwas not aimed at investigating the trade union orientation or the opinion of the worker, but exclusively at sanctioning the offensive or inappropriate remarks made about the general manager of the local health authority\u201c.
\nThe Court reminds us that \u201cthe Data Privacy Authority observed that the respondent company did not play any active role in the collection of data relating to Mr. S. In fact, they came across it in a report by an employee of the ASL itself, who had been included by Mr S. among the recipients of the communications he had sent. Accordingly, there was no monitoring and\/or checking of the employee\u2019s e-mail box\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"