Italian SA fines a company for post-sick leave questionnaires
Italy's data protection authority fined Magna PT S.p.A. and issued a definitive ban on data processing after the company used questionnaires to collect information from employees returning from sick leave. The regulator found violations covering lawfulness of processing, transparency obligations, and the handling of special category health data under the GDPR.
Why this matters: When you come back from sick leave, your employer does not get to run a questionnaire about it. Health information is some of the most sensitive data there is, and GDPR treats it that way for a reason. This case is a clean example of a company treating a legal compliance exercise as a data collection opportunity. The fine matters less than the processing ban, which means Magna PT cannot keep doing this at all. Any employer using return-to-work forms should look hard at what they are actually asking and whether they have any legal ground to ask it.
Who should care: Lawyers · Privacy officers · Compliance · General readers · Policy
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