The Privacy Protection of the Sick Employee: The Dutch Case from a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article deals with the protection of an employee's health data when the employer has to pay sick pay and reintegrate the sick employee. The Regulations of the Council of Europe and the European Union require that domestic law offers appropriate/adequate safeguards for the protection of health data when they are processed for employment purposes. There is a discussion of way in which the Dutch system provides these safeguards, compared with systems in other European countries. It appears that legal safeguards for the protection of health data in the Dutch system are comparable with those in other European countries. In practice, however, there may be a risk in the Dutch system that the company doctor will provide the employer with medical information, even when he/she is not permitted to do so. The doctor's independent position and the observance of patient confidentiality may, in some cases, come under pressure. The author proposes changing the organisation of company doctors in the Netherlands so as to strengthen their position.