Employee Consent in the Process of Continuous Technological Monitoring: A Comparative Analysis of European Standards and Georgian Legislation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60131/jlaw.1.2026.11883Keywords:
Consent, Personal Data, Labor Law, UAM Monitoring, General Data Protection Regulation (hereafterAbstract
The present research is dedicated to a critical evaluation of the validity of employee consent as a legal basis for processing personal data under the conditions of continuous technological monitoring (hereafter "UAM") within the workplace. The starting point of the study is the structural power asymmetry inherent in employment relations, which essentially precludes the free expression of will and renders the institution of consent a legal fiction.
Based on a synthetic analysis of national labor and data protection legislation (the Labor Code of Georgia and the 2023 Law on "Personal Data Protection"), alongside the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (Bărbulescu v. Romania, 2017; López Ribalda v. Spain, 2019) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereafter "CJEU", Case C-34/21), the paper establishes that consent alone is insufficient to legitimize digital surveillance. Emphasis is placed on the necessity of relying upon alternative mechanisms—namely, the three-step legitimate interests assessment (hereafter "LIA"), the proportionality test, and the mandatory data protection impact assessment (hereafter "DPIA").
Additionally, the paper analyzes the institutional transformation enacted as of March 2, 2026 - specifically, the transfer of the supervisory mandate to the State Audit Office - as a novel practical challenge in the process of enforcing and administering heightened data protection standards within employment relations.
References
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