Supreme Court: Covering CCTV Installed Without Worker Consent Is Not Work Interference

The Supreme Court has ruled that if a company installs closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras that can capture scenes of employees commuting or working without their consent, employees cannot be punished for obstruction of business even if they covered the cameras with plastic bags to block filming.

According to the legal community on the 17th, the Supreme Court's 3rd Division (Presiding Justice Ahn Cheol-sang) partially overturned the original ruling that sentenced three officials of the Metal Workers' Union Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Branch, including Mr. A, to fines of 700,000 won each on charges of obstruction of business, and remanded the case to the Jeonju District Court.

Supreme Court in Seocho-dong, Seoul.

The court stated, "The lower court erred in its judgment that it was difficult to consider the entire indictment as meeting the requirements of justifiable acts such as appropriateness of means and methods, balance of legal interests, urgency, and subsidiarity, and failed to apply the correct legal principles regarding justifiable acts and to conduct necessary hearings."

Mr. A and others were indicted for repeatedly covering 51 CCTV cameras installed inside and outside a car factory in Gunsan City with black plastic bags from November 2015 to January 2016, thereby obstructing the company's facility management work.

The company had experienced two incidents of material theft in December 2013 and May 2014, and fires occurred on some factory exterior walls in March 2014 and May 2015. Consequently, starting in August 2015, the company began installing CCTV cameras for facility safety and fire monitoring purposes.

The union protested to the company that proceeding with the installation without the consent of the workers or consultation with the union was unfair and demanded a halt to the construction. However, the company insisted that worker consent or union consultation was not required and proceeded with the installation, completing it by the end of October 2015.

Of the total 51 CCTV cameras installed by the company, 32 were placed along the outer fence of the factory site to capture both the inside and outside of the factory grounds centered on the fence, and the remaining 19 included 16 cameras installed on major facilities within the factory site and 3 at the entrances.

In court, Mr. A and others argued that their act of covering the cameras with plastic bags did not constitute the 'force' element of obstruction of business, and that filming by CCTV installed without the consent of the workers, who are data subjects under the Personal Information Protection Act, did not interfere with protected business activities. They also emphasized that even if it did, their actions were justifiable and therefore not illegal.

However, the first and second trial courts rejected their claims and found them guilty.

The courts reasoned that the CCTV cameras were installed for legitimate company interests such as facility management, most were installed on the factory perimeter, and thus could not be considered for employee surveillance. They also found that the requirements for justifiable acts were not met.

But the Supreme Court's judgment differed. The Supreme Court held that for the CCTV cameras among the 51 that captured work sites or commuting scenes, the company should have obtained the workers' consent before installation. Since this did not fall under the exceptional cases allowing collection of personal information without consent under the Personal Information Protection Act, the workers' actions to block filming were not illegal.

The court pointed out, "Among the CCTV cameras, 16 installed on major facilities and 3 at entrances capture scenes of many workers at work and commuting," and noted that "a situation where personal information was being illegally collected against the defendants' will was materializing."

Furthermore, even if the CCTV was not installed for surveillance purposes, if it effectively functioned to monitor workers, it was considered a 'worker surveillance facility' requiring consultation with the union under the Labor-Management Relations Act.

The court concluded, "The acts of Mr. A and others may be regarded as not violating social norms under Article 20 of the Criminal Act," and found their actions justifiable and not illegal.

Article 15, Paragraph 1 of the Personal Information Protection Act enumerates cases where a personal information handler may collect personal information, including ▲ when consent is obtained from the data subject (Item 1), ▲ when there are special provisions in laws or it is unavoidable to comply with legal obligations (Item 2), and ▲ when necessary to achieve the legitimate interests of the personal information handler and clearly overriding the rights of the data subject (Item 6).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.