Employee monitoring law · Austria
A works council veto with no workaround, and no council means individual consent.
A works agreement, or individual written consent where no council exists. There is no third route.
- Region
- Europe
- Instruments
- 3 governing
- Employer duties
- 3 listed
- Last reviewed
- August 22, 2026
Austria · what the law requires
Prior approval required
Austria is stricter than Germany in one respect: § 96(1) no. 3 ArbVG makes works council approval a condition of validity for any system that touches human dignity, and monitoring systems that evaluate performance sit inside it. There is no "consult and proceed" path. Where no works council exists, the requirement does not disappear, it converts into individual employee agreement, which is harder to obtain defensibly.
- Works council agreement as a preconditionNot a consultation and not a negotiation you can conclude unilaterally. Without the Betriebsvereinbarung the system may not run.
- Individual agreement where there is no councilSmaller employers do not escape the rule. Each affected employee must agree, which in practice means the configuration has to be modest enough that agreeing is reasonable.
- Human dignity as the testThe threshold is not "is it proportionate" but whether the system touches dignity. Continuous screen capture is routinely argued to cross it.
- Proof Ledger
- Outcomes
- Certificates
- Audit log
- Data access
- Disputes
- Data egress
- Export
- What We See
- Controls
- AKAria K. viewed screenshotsLena M. · 3 capturesScreen capturemacOS · London09:42a91f…4c023d7b…91ee
- JMJon M. exported time reportDesign team · CSVmacOS · Berlin09:313d7b…91ee77c5…0ba4
- SDSara D. opened capture reviewRavi P. · one flagged frameWindows · Manchester09:1877c5…0ba4e208…5f13
- wm_live_7f2… read /v1/deliverablesScoped key · read onlyPublic API · allowlisted IP08:57e208…5f13b64a…2d90
- LMLena M. viewed her own recordWhat We SeemacOS · London08:44b64a…2d901cf9…8e77
- AKAria K. changed capture policyBlur set to alwaysmacOS · London08:261cf9…8e7705d2…ae31
The instruments, and which control answers each duty
- GDPR: Regulation (EU) 2016/679. Sets the floor everywhere in the EEA: a lawful basis, purpose limitation, data minimisation, transparency and a DPIA where monitoring is high risk. National law below adds to this, never subtracts.
- Labour Constitution Act: ArbVG § 96(1) no. 3 / § 96a. Systems affecting human dignity require works council consent as a validity condition. Performance-evaluating systems fall under § 96a where they do not reach the dignity threshold.
- Data Protection Act: DSG 2018. The Austrian implementation, applied alongside the ArbVG rather than instead of it.
No product does this part
What you must still do yourself
Compliance is a property of your deployment. These are the steps in Austria that no vendor can complete on your behalf, and skipping them is what turns a rollout into a finding.
- 1Obtain works council consent, or individual employee agreement where no council exists, before deployment.
- 2Document why the configuration does not touch human dignity. The burden is yours.
- 3Run a DPIA and keep it current as the configuration changes.
- If you get it wrongGDPR-level fines, plus the system being legally invalid: agreements reached without works council consent can be struck down and the monitoring ordered to stop.
Verify the claim
Every control above, on the page that describes it
- Per-app deny-lists and working-hours-scoped capture policiesPresent a configuration a council will actually approve
- Employee self-view of everything collectedGive employees the visibility that makes agreement reasonable
- Explainability breakdown behind every scoreKeep evaluation explainable rather than opaque
Sources and review date
Last reviewed August 22, 2026This is a summary of how employee-monitoring rules generally work in this jurisdiction, written to help you scope a rollout and brief your own advisers. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for it, and law changes. Verify against the primary sources listed and take local counsel before you deploy.
Nearby jurisdictions
Monitoring law elsewhere in Europe
- ItalyUnion agreement or a labour inspectorate authorisation, a filing, not a policy.
- NetherlandsWorks council consent, and the regulator treats screenshots as disproportionate by default.
- PortugalThe Labour Code prohibits remote means used to monitor employee performance.
- SwitzerlandSystems for monitoring worker behaviour are prohibited by the labour ordinance.
- FranceConsult the CSE first. Skipping it is the criminal offence of obstruction.
- BelgiumCBA 81 governs electronic monitoring and binds every private-sector employer.
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