EU: the Platform Work Directive has been published

The so-called Platform Work Directive (the “Directive”), which aims to regulate the rapidly expanding digital platform work sector, was finally published in the Official Journal of the EU on 11 November 2024. The Directive will enter into force on 1 December 2024 and must be implemented by Member States into national law by 2 December 2026 at the latest. 

The Directive is expected to have far-reaching consequences for the digital platform sector, which is expected to encompass over 42 million workers by next year. 

We have extensively covered the Directive in our previous blog posts (for more information, see here, here, here and here). In a nutshell, some key aspects of the Directive include:

• Far-reaching Scope: The scope of the Directive is broad as it applies to “digital labour platforms” which are present in a variety of economic sectors, be it “on location”, such as ride-hailing and food delivery drivers, or online with services such as data encoding and translation. The Directive mandates compliance from digital labour platforms organising work within the EU, focusing on where work is physically performed, irrespective of the platform's establishment or the service recipient's location. This includes platforms with cross-border operations, such as a coder based in Germany working for a UK company with a UK customer.
   
• Worker Status: The Directive initially proposed an automatic presumption of employment based on a predefined set of criteria, but the European Commission’s initial proposal did not make it to the final text. Instead, each Member State will need to establish its criteria for presuming employment, based on control and direction. Companies will therefore still need to consult the patchwork of national laws and court decisions to assess the status of their workers. 
   
• Algorithmic Management: Potentially more far-reaching than the worker status provisions are the first EU rules on algorithmic management in the workplace introduced by the Directive. 

The use of algorithms for monitoring, rewarding, or disciplining work on digital platforms is a vivid topic and is becoming more common across a variety of sectors. The Directive might signal future trends in algorithmic management regulations. The regulation of algorithms is still largely underdeveloped whilst new technologies increasingly influence different sectors. Some EU countries are however beginning to take initiative, such as Belgium with its recent proposal for a resolution focused on developing a proactive policy and coherent strategy regarding the use of algorithms, data, and artificial intelligence in the workplace. 

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• Data Protection: Whilst recognising GDPR, the Directive enhances those protections by, amongst others, explicitly prohibiting reliance on workers' consent for processing personal data. Companies will also need to carry out a mandatory data protection impact assessment and consult the platform workers and their representatives on the topic. 

Platforms will certainly be evaluating how the Directive could impact their interactions with individuals and whether they fall within scope of the rules. We have extensive experience in this sector and are happy to help.