The right to privacy in employment : in search of a contemporary paradigm through a comparative study

Abstract

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the term 'privacy' is universally known nevertheless in the legal arena it is still a concept in 'disarray'. Enclosing it within legal frames seems to be a particularly difficult task in the employment context, where the Information Revolution, by altering the nature of work, and as a consequence the character and reach of traditional instruments of employer supervision, has considerably blurred the frontiers between employees' private and professional lives. Nowadays we are facing forms of control and of employee subordination that differ substantially from those that we have known until now. In the light of the above there is a growing need to reconsider the conceptual and normative dimensions of the right to privacy in employment, a context which is frequently ignored by the privacy literature and where the encroachments upon privacy are not only potentially more frequent, but most importantly, are qualitatively different than those taking places in other milieus in modern society. The thesis is centered around a comparative examination of the models of protection of the right to privacy in employment. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the European, American and Canadian frameworks of privacy protection, assesses the need for their further particularization and complementarity with regard to the employment context, and finally, uses the record of the conceptual as well as the regulatory divergences and convergences between the different models to distinguish the conceptual and normative foundations of contemporary employment-specific paradigm of the right to privacy, as well as the pillars of a holistic approach to the protection of employees' right to privacy.