My company would like to be able to post thank you gifts to our employees to their home address. During normal times we would have handed these gifts over to them in person but with everyone working from home, we would still like our employees to receive these gifts. Do we need to have consent from each employee to use their home address for this purpose every time we want to do this? Do employees need to give consent for us to share their names and addresses with the delivery company?
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Elisavet D.
Hi! I would definitely recommend legitimate interest as a legal basis. Although the purpose is so kind, consent must be avoided in the employment relationship, given the imbalance of powers of the parties. Make sure you carry out a Legitimate Interest Assessment and I hope your employees will enjoy their gift boxes 🙂
Henk van Leussen
An employer is of course allowed to give thank you gifts to his staff, especially around the holidays. The GDPR thinks it is fine if you send it in a time of pandemic and / or working from home. That simply falls under being a good employer, or in other words, implementation of the employment contract. And if you are a more precise DPO, you can use the legitimate interest as legal basis. In practical terms, only employees can object.
kathleen
Hi.
I would ask employees to fill out a form with the simple question: “At what address would you like to receive the gift?”.
This means no additional processing of HR data for other purposes.
Also not everybody works from his official home address 😉
d9d9d9
I’d say that this processing activity can be based on legitimate interest instead of consent. It is in your company’s legitimate interest to keep the morale high among the troops.
Don’t forget to conduct a Legitimate Interest Assessment before to confirm that you can rely on this legal ground and to ensure that you’re taking all the necessary measures to carry this processing out in the best and safest way possible.
Chris Roberts
I would agree with Elisavet totally. LI not Consent for the imbalance reason she rightly states. Remember LI should have a supporting documented test.
djberney
Like a couple of other posters, I would steer away from consent.LI is the most likely fit but I would add that the information on the employees address should be controlled so that it is only accessible to those who need it not those who would like it or who think it would be easier. Your LIA should also cover the scenario where objections are raised.
In times like these where we find ourselves doing things differently it is easy to forget that what you think of as being a kind gesture doesn’t mean the intention is enough to override the data subjects privacy rights. Always look for alternatives that minimise the use of personal data whilst still being able to show that kindness.
Barry Moult
I smile when I see this question.
45 years ago i worked with am organisation (12k employees) they had a ‘sick visitor’
If you were off sick for over 2 weeks, the ‘sick visitor’ would visit you to find out if you needed any additional support while off sick. We didn’t have computers, privacy notices to let you know, the ‘sick visitor’ just turned up at your door step. They recorded if you were in or out !!!
How things have changed ! Now PN needs to be in place, Legal Basis for sharing, record retention etc.
In answer to the question I would use LI.
Alexander Sturing
I would take the road of consent by sending out an email to all employees, informing them about your intentions and if they are interested, let them reply to the email with their home address. Tell them that the reply on the email is the “consent” of the activity.
When it comes to sharing the address with the delivery company, that’s not based on consent, but that would be based on the performance of a contract. You purchase a “service” from the delivery company and in order for them to fulfil that service, they need to have the addresses.
To me, this is a typical case of “pragmatic” approach… follow your heart and it’ll be fine!
PS, love the gesture! A little token of gratitude goes a long way!