Protection of worker's personal data in employment relation

Protection of personal data is becoming increasingly important along with the ease of technological progress and data flow. The dependency relationship between the employee and the employer established due to the nature of the labour contract, make the need to protect the personal data of the employee important. In employment relation, the employer can take the advantage of the dependency of the employee to process the personel data of the employee beyond measure and contrary to law. There are regulations regarding the protection of personal data in national and international legislations. In Turkey, The Law on the Protection of Personal Data was officially published on April 7th 2016. Even though the recent legislation contains general regulations, it does not include direct regulations for employment relation. In this study, the protection of personal data of the employee has been examined within the framework of the provisions of the Law No. 6698, Turkish Labour Code and Turkish Code of Obligations. It has been explained under which case of legal grounds and under what conditions the personal data of the employee can be processed. General principles of data protection law has been evaluated in terms of labour law. The employer‟s illegal data processing activities and the most common data acquisition methods have been examined in detail. Last chapter of thesis reserved to legal actions that employee can apply, whose personal data has been processed contrary to law. Keywords: Protection of Personal Data, Labour Law, Employee, Employment Relationship, Protection of Worker‟s Personal Data