Employee monitoring law · Belgium
CBA 81 governs electronic monitoring and binds every private-sector employer.
Declare the purpose under CBA 81, inform the works council, and stay inside what you declared.
- Region
- Europe
- Instruments
- 3 governing
- Employer duties
- 3 listed
- Last reviewed
- August 22, 2026
Belgium · what the law requires
Consultation required
Collective Bargaining Agreement no. 81 is directly binding on all private-sector employers and sets out when monitoring of electronic communications is permitted, which purposes qualify, and what has to be told to the works council and to individuals. It also builds in a graduated approach: aggregate monitoring first, individualisation only after a warning phase, except for the narrowest purposes.
- One of four permitted purposesPrevention of unlawful acts, protection of economic interests, security of the network, or compliance with the employer's IT usage rules. Anything else is outside the agreement.
- Aggregate before individualFor most purposes, monitoring starts at group level. Individualising a finding requires a prior warning phase. Going straight to the individual is the common breach.
- Collective and individual informationThe works council is informed of the purposes and the method; individuals are informed of what applies to them.
- 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.
- Collective Bargaining Agreement no. 81: CBA 81 / CAO 81. Binding on all private-sector employers. Sets the permitted purposes for monitoring electronic communications and the collective and individual information duties.
- Works council information duty: CBA 9 and CBA 39. Information and consultation of employee representatives on new technology with collective consequences.
No product does this part
What you must still do yourself
Compliance is a property of your deployment. These are the steps in Belgium that no vendor can complete on your behalf, and skipping them is what turns a rollout into a finding.
- 1Inform the works council of purposes and methods, and document it.
- 2Build the warning phase into your process before any individualisation.
- 3Write the IT usage policy CBA 81 assumes exists, several of its purposes reference it.
- If you get it wrongGDPR fines plus Social Criminal Code sanctions, and, as elsewhere. Findings obtained outside CBA 81 are generally unusable in a dismissal.
Verify the claim
Every control above, on the page that describes it
- Team and org rollups in the analyticsWork at team level before naming an individual
- Notice record showing the policy version and date each person receivedRecord that the information duty was met
- Anomaly feed carrying the underlying activity behind each flagTie a finding to a permitted purpose with evidence
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
- SpainDigital rights are written into the data protection act, and reps must be involved.
- FinlandA dedicated working-life privacy act, and a necessity test read very narrowly.
- PolandThe Labour Code lists the permitted purposes, and productivity is not one of them.
- United KingdomThe ICO's 2023 monitoring guidance is the operative document, and it expects a DPIA.
- IrelandThe DPC accepts a legitimate business interest, and then tests proportionality hard.
- SwedenCo-determination negotiation before any significant change, including this one.
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