The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection considers yesterday's public statement by Perutnina Ptuj-Topiko d.o.o (ltd.) Backa Topola on the occasion of the warning sent by the Commissioner completely inappropriate. The company received a warning for unlawful processing of personal data by polygraph testing of a large number of employees.
The Commissioner underlines that it is completely irrelevant whether the motive for the polygraph testing was "to detect offenders" (as specified by the representatives of Perutnina in the process of inspection and as stated in the Inspection Report), "consumer protection" (as written in the company's public statement) or something else.
The only relevant thing, as was clearly stated and explained in the warning of the Commissioner sent to Perutnina, is that there was no legal basis for the polygraph testing of the employees and no legally valid consent, which is why this constitutes unauthorized personal data processing.
The employees' "consents" collected by Peritnina were not drafted in the form and content proscribed by the Law on Personal Data Protection, and are, therefore, not legally valid. This fact alone would make the given data processing unauthorized. But, even if the formal requirements for consent had been respected, the consent could not have had substantive validity, since the condition is for it to be given by free will. In this particular situation, it is clear that, due to the obvious disproportionate influence between those who obtained the consents and those who were requested to give them, the requirement was not met. It is only a free consent when one can refuse to give it without negative consequences for his/her employment status, which was not the case here.
The Commissioner will not enter into a debate with Perutnina Ptuj. The Commissioner expects Perutnina to comply with the received warning by the specified date, and to notify the Commissioner of the actions taken so that he can decide on possible further measures within his authorities.
