{"id":2742,"date":"2026-04-22T08:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/?p=2742"},"modified":"2026-04-22T08:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:26:12","slug":"pay-transparency-directive-preparing-for-data-protection-compliant-implementation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/?p=2742","title":{"rendered":"Pay Transparency Directive: Preparing for data protection-compliant implementation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\u00a0Pay Transparency Directive<\/a>\u00a0(Directive 2023\/970\/EU) of the EU entered into force on 6 June 2023[LM2]\u00a0, and must be implemented into national law within three years. The implementation deadline is 7\u00a0June 2026. Not all member states have already implemented the new rules into their national legislation.

Women and men are entitled to equal pay for equal work and work of equal value. This goal has not yet been achieved, and one of the objectives of the Pay Transparency Directive is to close the pay gap.

Employees are entitled, among other things, to information about their individual pay as well as the average pay of colleagues performing the same or equivalent work. All employers are affected, regardless of size. Businesses with at least 100 employees must also regularly report on the gender pay gap as part of their reporting obligations.

In Germany, for example, no draft bill for an implementing law has been published yet, so it is questionable whether the legislative process will be completed in time by June 2026 or even later.

What needs to be done from a privacy perspective?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Updating the employee privacy notice<\/strong>
    Add an additional processing purpose. Example:
    \u201cWe generate analyses based on the salary data of all employees to fulfill our transparency obligations.\u201d
    It is not necessary to specifically mention the Pay Transparency Directive.
     <\/li>
  2. Information provided to employees and applicants<\/strong>
    In principle, there are no special privacy requirements, as the information itself does not contain personal data of other employees. An exemption applies to single-person comparison groups (if the comparison group in question for the employee asserting a right to information consists of only a single other employee); in such cases, under certain circumstances, only the works council, for example, may view the data and provide abstract information. However, the specific implementation remains to be determined.
    The right to information also applies to applicants regarding the starting salary or its range.
     <\/li>
  3. Purpose Limitation and Use of Data<\/strong>
    Salary data may only be used to fulfill reporting obligations and strictly for specific purposes, such as accounting.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Guidelines<\/strong>
    For practical implementation, it is recommended to provide guidelines for the HR department and a second (shorter) set for HR managers.

    With regard to the latter, from a privacy perspective, it is important to note that the law takes the approach that employees generally should not be able to inquire about the salaries of individual colleagues, but only about an average value.

    The delayed national implementation of the directive creates uncertainty. Businesses should nevertheless proactively review their compensation structures and adapt them to EU requirements to avoid discrimination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The\u00a0Pay Transparency Directive\u00a0(Directive 2023\/970\/EU) of the EU entered into force on 6 June 2023[LM2]\u00a0, and must be implemented into national law within<\/p>\n

    Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2743,"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.eprivacy.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}