TST holds security company liable for investigating a driver's private life every year

On the docket: the TST's 8th Panel ruled on the Interlocutory Appeal within an Interlocutory Appeal in Appeal for Review AGRRAg-812-25.2019.5.05.0612, upholding a security and valuables-transport company's liability to pay R$ 15,000 in damages for pain and suffering to a driver whose private life was investigated by the company every year. The inquiry included questioning neighbors and family members about the employee's debts, gambling habits and history of domestic violence. The Panel held that the practice exceeds the employer's managerial authority and invades the employee's private sphere, even though the company argued institutional-security reasons tied to the transport of valuables.

The ruling does not question the company's right to check the trustworthiness of anyone who will handle valuables or sensitive information at the time of hiring. The problem flagged by the TST is a different one: the recurring, expanding investigation, year after year, into aspects of personal life that bear no direct relation to job performance, carried out with third parties from the employee's private life without his clear knowledge or consent.

For corporate security, compliance and HR teams that run or outsource this kind of check, especially in sectors such as valuables transport, asset security and logistics, the ruling is a good reason to review the scope: what gets checked, how often, and whether the information collected bears a direct, proportional relationship to the risk it aims to mitigate.

Does your company's trustworthiness-verification policy have a defined, proportional scope, or does it expand based on the curiosity of whoever runs the check?