Artificial intelligence and data protection at workplace : how the legal framework can promote the design of sustainable technologies and reinforce workers’ data protection
Résumé
The digital transformations that operate at all levels of society are also unfolding in the workplace. They make it possible to increase production, to improve health or working conditions of employees. But at the same time, beyond the benefits they can also bring risks. Indeed, the big data analytics coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) give a deep knowledge of employees and reinforce the power of employer. In a context of employment relationship, thinking about sustainable technologies, understood in the sense of an acceptable technology, means looking for ways to protect workers and balance power.
Withing the data protection framework, the European Parliament and the Council of the European union had adopted on the 27th of April 2016 the regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data (GDPR). The GDPR is based on the rights of data subjects (which are employees in the workplace context) and the obligations of those who process personal data (which are employers in the workplace context).
In the context of the employment relationship, the research question of this paper is how employees can control collection and use of their own data.