Judgments | The personnel manager dug up the employee's health information: called occupational health and posed as an employee

A clothing chain the human resources manager was sentenced to fines for identity theft in the district court of Länsi-Uusimaa. The personnel manager had posed as an employee when asking for information related to this sick leave certificate from the telephone number of the occupational health service in Espoo in early 2021.

There were 35 daily fines, of which he accumulated 1,540 euros to be paid with his income. In addition, the court obliged him to compensate the employee 700 euros for the suffering.

However, the biggest expense came from the fact that he also has to pay the employee's court costs, more than 3,000 euros. On top of that will be his own expenses.

An employee of Terveyskeskus Mehiläinen, heard as a witness, said that he was under the impression that when he called back to the call request, he would have spoken to the patient and not someone else. He also said that they did not even have permission to give health information to the employer.

The human resources manager, on the other hand, said that he resolved a discrepancy between the date of signing the sick leave certificate and the date the incapacity for work began. Then when the callback service came in, he answered with his own name and assumed the caller knew who he was talking to.

Legal held that the personnel manager must have deliberately posed as an employee when he gave the employee's name and social security number in the call.

The court stated that the act caused more than minor harm to the employee due to, among other things, all the subsequent investigation.

The compensation recommendation for identity theft is 200-1,000 euros, so the prescribed 700 euros is on the upper side of the scale. The court gave its verdict last week.

The matter was reported by a podcast service focused on data protection issues Privacy Pod.