3 ms·

Money goes to the state, which is outright alien to me. The fact that the company pays a fine totally makes sense to me. But the country getting the money and t

Money goes to the state, which is outright alien to me. The fact that the company pays a fine totally makes sense to me. But the country getting the money and the employee just getting their "right" is a major flaw in this system from my point of view. You need to compensate these people... at least a little bit.

dirkt 6y ago
See other comment: This court decision now will help a lot if the employees now file for civil damages. But that's a separate case. And given that basically all bigger German companies have a works council [1], this is really really likely to happen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council
- corty 6y ago
  Fines going to the state in Germany is actually a problem imho. The damages you can expect for this are laughable, 40k is a typical payment to the family for wrongful death (cost of burial plus anguish). For video surveilance at the workplace you can expect a few hundred bucks at most, if the court even takes the case and doesn't dismiss it outright as minor. If there were punitive damages awarded to the victims, a lot more illegal behaviour would be properly prosecuted. Officials like the state data protection officer are intentionally understaffed, so they only prosecute the most egregious problems. Private citizens and their attorneys could take up the slack if it were financially viable.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    >Officials like the state data protection officer are intentionally understaffed, so they only prosecute the most egregious problems. Private citizens and their attorneys could take up the slack if it were financially viable. I can assure that this is not an issue for Germany. If anything they are overstaffed based on the false and egregious bullshit I have had to pay lawyers to get overturned.
  - blackbrokkoli 6y ago
    That sounds like a highway towards a system where only the ones who can afford (in terms of time and many) persecution get justice. With a nice dose of second order effects you usually get from a "everybody sues everybody for everything because you may get rich system". Reminds me of a certain "justice" system on the other side of the pond. The solution to weak law enforcement is to give more power to the law enforcement, not to a selected class of privileged people.
scotty79 6y ago
Giving money to the victim is a bad idea because it does nothing to prevent this crime in the future (taking money from perpetrator does that) but it creates perverse incentive for people to pretend to be victims of similar crimes and engage costly justice system in hopes they can get some money. Then you have to balance it out with harsh punishments for unsubtantiated lawsuits but that could sometimes affect legit victims that were just short of evidence. It's better to not have the problem in the first place. It would be better to just burn the money then to give it to the victims. Victim separately could prove what actual harm was done and request support, but this should be completely separate process ideally financed separately, that disregards how rich is the perpetrator or how severele he violeted the law. Same way money from fines shouldn't land anywhere near the cops that give the fines because this creates perverse incentive.

dirkt 6y ago

See other comment: This court decision now will help a lot if the employees now file for civil damages. But that's a separate case. And given that basically all bigger German companies have a works council [1], this is really really likely to happen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council

corty 6y ago
Fines going to the state in Germany is actually a problem imho. The damages you can expect for this are laughable, 40k is a typical payment to the family for wrongful death (cost of burial plus anguish). For video surveilance at the workplace you can expect a few hundred bucks at most, if the court even takes the case and doesn't dismiss it outright as minor. If there were punitive damages awarded to the victims, a lot more illegal behaviour would be properly prosecuted. Officials like the state data protection officer are intentionally understaffed, so they only prosecute the most egregious problems. Private citizens and their attorneys could take up the slack if it were financially viable.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  >Officials like the state data protection officer are intentionally understaffed, so they only prosecute the most egregious problems. Private citizens and their attorneys could take up the slack if it were financially viable. I can assure that this is not an issue for Germany. If anything they are overstaffed based on the false and egregious bullshit I have had to pay lawyers to get overturned.
- blackbrokkoli 6y ago
  That sounds like a highway towards a system where only the ones who can afford (in terms of time and many) persecution get justice. With a nice dose of second order effects you usually get from a "everybody sues everybody for everything because you may get rich system". Reminds me of a certain "justice" system on the other side of the pond. The solution to weak law enforcement is to give more power to the law enforcement, not to a selected class of privileged people.

scotty79 6y ago

Giving money to the victim is a bad idea because it does nothing to prevent this crime in the future (taking money from perpetrator does that) but it creates perverse incentive for people to pretend to be victims of similar crimes and engage costly justice system in hopes they can get some money. Then you have to balance it out with harsh punishments for unsubtantiated lawsuits but that could sometimes affect legit victims that were just short of evidence. It's better to not have the problem in the first place. It would be better to just burn the money then to give it to the victims. Victim separately could prove what actual harm was done and request support, but this should be completely separate process ideally financed separately, that disregards how rich is the perpetrator or how severele he violeted the law. Same way money from fines shouldn't land anywhere near the cops that give the fines because this creates perverse incentive.