Employer criticised for emailing dismissal reasons to staff and partners

When a Danish employer tells staff and business contacts that an employee has left, the reason for the departure does not routinely go with the message. Passing on the reason for a summary dismissal (bortvisning) needs its own lawful basisDatatilsynet, and the wish to stop rumours or to protect commercial relationships does not by itself supply oneDatatilsynet.

The case concerned a former employee who had been summarily dismissed (bortvisning)Datatilsynet. The employer sent mails about the reason for the dismissal to all employees and to selected samarbejdspartnereDatatilsynet. The former employee complained to DatatilsynetDatatilsynet, the Danish data protection authority, which upheld the complaintDatatilsynet and issued kritik of the employer for sharing the information without a lawful behandlingsgrundlagDatatilsynet.

The employer put forward two justifications: the mails were meant to prevent rygtedannelse in the workplace and to protect the relationship with the business partnersDatatilsynet, and the former employee had contacted the partners and made accusations against the companyDatatilsynet. Datatilsynet weighed the employer's interests against those of the former employeeDatatilsynet and found that the employee's side carried greater weightDatatilsynet.

Two factors were decisive. First, the starting point for departure announcements is restraint: when an employer informs others that an employee has left, it will as a general rule not be necessary to state the backgroundDatatilsynet. Second, the disclosure here went beyond a brief factual notice in both breadth and depthDatatilsynet. It reached a wide circle, covering the whole workforce plus external partnersDatatilsynet, and both groups received detailed information about the grounds for the bortvisning rather than a neutral statement of departureDatatilsynet.

This is not the first time the rumour-prevention argument has failed. In a December 2022 decision on the same patternDatatilsynet, an employer told the whole workplace that an employee had been dismissed over matters including samarbejdsvanskelighederDatatilsynetDatatilsynet, saying the purpose was to avoid rygtedannelseDatatilsynet. Datatilsynet held that the orientation mails went further than necessary for their purpose, which was to orient the relevant persons about the departureDatatilsynet, and that the departing employee's interests weighed heavierDatatilsynet. It found the processing not in accordance with databeskyttelsesforordningens artikel 6, stk. 1Datatilsynet.

For DPOs and employment counsel the consequence is to separate the fact of departure from the reason. A notice confined to the fact that the employment has ended stays within the purpose the authority recognisesDatatilsynet; anything that adds the grounds must pass the balancing test on its ownDatatilsynet. The employer's interest in calming speculation, or in answering accusations the former employee is said to have made, did not carry that balance hereDatatilsynet. Both the circle of recipients and the level of detail countDatatilsynet: the authority attached weight to how many received the mails and to the fact that they contained detailed groundsDatatilsynet.

Legal basis is databeskyttelsesforordningens artikel 6, stk. 1Datatilsynet, which requires a lawful basis for every processing of personal dataRetsinformation, applied through the balancing of the employer's interests against those of the former employeeDatatilsynet.