GDPR and working from home

GDPR in the Home Office

In connection with Covid-19, a large part of the population in the Danish labour market has moved their usual workplace home in the private sector, and this indicates that working from home is to some extent here to stay. This can pose some challenges in relation to GDPR.

This has meant, among other things, that there is an increased risk that confidential documents and personally identifiable data will get out where they should not, as security at home is not the same as in the workplace. Therefore, it may be necessary to provide additional security measures from the home workplace.

Good Advice from the Data Protection Authority

In March 2020, the Danish Data Protection Agency issued a number of recommendations on security and data protection.

According to this, it is a good idea as a company to:

• Come up with some clear guidelines for the homeworkers
• Use secure access, such as VPN, to professional systems
• Use the case management systems that are secure with access control and other things
• Make sure that papers containing information about natural persons are safely disposed of when the information is no longer needed

Working Abroad

The Danish Data Protection Agency does not mention anything about data protection in connection with foreign work in its new guidelines on “Data protection in connection with employment relationships”. If you have employees who work in countries outside the EU, it may be a matter of transferring the data to a third country where special rules apply. In these cases, it is necessary to ensure adequate security measures, which is why the Danish Data Protection Agency’s recommendations are also relevant here.

What Should You as an Employer Be Aware of in Relation to GDPR?

If you are an employer, we recommend that you carefully consider security measures when your employees work from home and abroad, so that the company’s data is processed responsibly.

You can also read more about GDPR here.