Video recording and working time fraud – observe high hurdles

Key Facts

Lower Saxony Higher Labor Court rules that video recordings cannot prove working time fraud.
Termination based on video recordings was declared inadmissible and overturned by the court.
The hurdles for using video recordings as evidence are high and require correct handling.
Employee was terminated for clocking in incorrectly and leaving work early, according to video.
Employer had access to video recordings more than a year later, which was deemed inappropriate.
Employer was obliged to retain data for only 96 hours, which impaired the probative value.
Personal evaluation of the data was excluded in a company agreement and could not be verified.

The Lower Saxony Regional Labor Court has ruled that video recordings cannot be used to prove working time fraud. A corresponding termination would be inadmissible in this case and was overturned by the court.

Even if the possibility exists in concrete terms, the hurdles are high and the other requirements for the correct handling of video recordings must also be observed. In this case, an employee was terminated. The reason for this was, among other things, evaluations of video recordings in front of the factory premises, which should have shown a wrong clocking in at the card reader for colleagues there and an earlier leaving of the workplace.

The employer’s undoing, however, was that the initial access to the video recordings took place more than a year ago and was therefore not adequate to uncover alleged work time fraud. In addition, in the case at hand, the employer had committed to actually keeping the video data for only 96 hours. The employer was also unable to use a personal evaluation of the data from a cartel reader at the entrance as evidence, because the evaluation was excluded in a company agreement.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.

Tags: Kündigung Labor Court