The legal basis for employee monitoring under GDPR

GDPR does not prohibit employee monitoring, but it requires a lawful basis for processing personal data. The most commonly used bases are legitimate interests (the employer's legitimate interest in productivity monitoring, balanced against employee privacy rights) and performance of a contract. Consent is rarely the right basis for workplace monitoring because of the power imbalance between employer and employee.

Transparency requirements

GDPR requires that employees be informed about what data is collected, how it is processed, who can access it, and how long it is retained. This must be communicated through a privacy notice before monitoring begins. Deskify provides template privacy notices and requires organizations to confirm employee disclosure before activating monitoring features.

Data minimization and retention

GDPR requires collecting only the data necessary for the stated purpose — no more. This means configuring your monitoring to match your actual business need: if the use case is attendance and timesheet generation, you may not need screenshots or screen recordings. Retention periods must be defined and enforced. Deskify's configurable retention periods (30-180 days for screenshots, 90 days for recordings) support GDPR data minimization requirements.

Employee rights

Under GDPR, employees have rights including access to their data, correction of inaccuracies, erasure in some circumstances, and objection to processing. Deskify's employee self-service portal directly supports the access right. For deletion requests, the admin panel provides export and deletion capabilities. Ensure your monitoring policy documents these rights and the process for exercising them.