Treatment of personal data in employment and employment contracts

Displaying personal data on the workplace website

Many employers publish work-related information about their employees on their website. This applies for example to names, work areas and contact information. The publication of such information does not actually require the employee's consent because the information is considered to be necessary information about the workplace.

Publication of personal contact information for employees, such as a private telephone number or e-mail address, and information about interests or other information about the personal circumstances of an employee, requires your general consent.

Photos of employees should not be published without their consent.

Sharing information with third parties

The sharing of personal data in connection with employment relationships can take various forms. In some cases, information must be shared according to law. For example, the employer is obliged to provide the tax office with information about employees' wages. If there is no specific legal basis, the basis for the sharing must be found in the provisions of the data protection legislation in order for it to take place.

Disclosure to a Uni­on re­pres­ent­a­t­i­ves

In some cases, the employer may need to pass on information about employees to the Uni­on re­pres­ent­a­t­i­ves, such as the names of new employees, education, salaries, classification of the employee's age and other information that may be considered necessary for the Uni­on re­pres­ent­a­t­i­vesto fulfill their obligations. The Uni­on re­pres­ent­a­t­i­ves may, for example, need to participate in collective bargaining negotiations and in those cases, they must have this information.

Disclosure of information to pension funds

The employment contract contains provisions on which pension funds the pension is to be paid to and how much the is paid to it. These are information that the employer must communicate to the pension fund and has the right to do so.

Information on municipal and state employees

There is often a central human resources department at municipalities that keeps track of the information of all employees of the municipality. If an employee moves to work within the municipality, the human resources department can therefore move the information about them to the right place and does not need a special permit for that.

There are other rules that apply to employees of the State. Directors of the State institutions are responsible for the implementation of personnel matters within their institution, but wage distribution and relations with trade unions in cooperative committees such as the allocation of jobs, in so far as the institutions do not do this themselves, are in the hands of the Financial Management Authority. The wage, collective-benefit and pension affairs of employees of the State are under the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. The State Administration of Wage and Human Resources is responsible for the negotiation of collective agreements with the State negotiating committee, and provides institutions with advice and guidance on their interpretation.

Therefore, if an employee is a government employee, there are many individuals involved in handling the information and it must be assessed at every time who is considered responsible for the information. Depending on the purpose of the information, who decides the purpose and how the information is to be processed. If an employee changes their workplace, it is possible to transfer access to their personnel matters to the new workplace and often people keep their rights, such as leave and the right to sick days between institutions.