🇪🇺 TLDR on EU Platform Directive

Enable your community with AI. The Directive, summarized.

Author

Eryn Peters
February 11, 2024

🇪🇺 EU Platform Directive 🇪🇺 

In 2022, over 28 million people in the EU work through one (or more) digital labor platforms. A number that is expected to climb to 43 million by 2025.

On Thursday, the European Parliament and Council struck a new provisional agreement on the draft law to improve the conditions of platform workers after the previous agreement had been derailed in a last-minute revolt.

There are around 500 digital labor platforms operating in the EU. Between 2016 and 2020, revenues in the platform economy grew nearly fivefold from an estimated €3 billion to around €14 billion.

The directive consists of three parts:

1. Employment Status and Classification

The platform is legally presumed to be an employer if it meets at least two of the following criteria:

  • upper limits on the amount of money workers can receive 

  • supervision of their performance, including by electronic means 

  • control over the distribution or allocation of tasks 

  • control over working conditions and restrictions on choosing working hours 

  • restrictions on their freedom to organize their work and rules on their appearance or conduct 

ie. Tell me you’re an employee without telling me you’re an employee.

2. Use of algorithms for HR management

Platforms cannot process personal data such as:

  • personal data on the emotional or psychological state of workers 

  • data related to private conversations 

  • data to predict trade union activity 

  • data used to infer a worker’s racial or ethnic origin, migration status, political opinions, religious beliefs, or health status 

  • biometric data, other than data used for authentication  

ie. AI and algorithms need human oversight and cannot track certain information or make automated decisions

3. Enforcement, transparency, and traceability

Platforms cannot process personal data such as:

  • personal data on the emotional or psychological state of workers 

  • data related to private conversations 

  • data to predict trade union activity 

  • data used to infer a worker’s racial or ethnic origin, migration status, political opinions, religious beliefs, or health status 

  • biometric data, other than data used for authentication  

ie. AI and algorithms need human oversight and cannot track certain information or make automated decisions

Is this a done deal?

Definitely not. It still has to be approved by member states and it’s unclear if the size of the December rebellion will be replicated. France, who holds considerable clout in Brussels may pull all the stops to bring the bill down.

A lobbying group that represents Uber, Bold, and Free Now dismissed Thursday’s talks as a “rushed process to agree to any Directive at any price” and called on member states to “critically scrutinize and reject the provisional agreement.”