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Does right to Data Access request /GDPR supersede restrictions in Employment contract of previous employer ?

Data - attendance & record of internal formal email communications between employee & the enterprise client. Client- Big enterprise where employee was deputed & worked as part of large project. There was certain investigation by the client on employee regarding data & it was completed positively & no flags were raised. [So will it be possible to get copy of outcome of this investigation under GDPR/SAR request]

Is above fundamental right's affected by Clauses in temporary employment contract like 'you can not contact client (not to be confused as person but medium sized enterprise-business)'

If one needs to contact client of employer/agency. Thanks

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    You should be more specific about what data you are concerned about and the relationship of the data holder with your previous employer.
    – Joe W
    Feb 4, 2019 at 20:33
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    This seems like an interesting question but (and I've never said this before) could you make it just a few words LONGER to make it clearer?
    – Fattie
    Feb 4, 2019 at 20:47
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    You should edit that information into your question with more details so someone with more knowledge of GDPR can help.
    – Joe W
    Feb 4, 2019 at 20:48
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    In general, the law always supersedes any contractual terms. But it's not clear how the GDPR applies here.
    – Simon B
    Feb 4, 2019 at 23:47
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    Closing as unclear. There is nothing in the GDPR that would interfere with the contractual obligation to not contact a specific enterprise. Posting the actual wording of the contract, the passage of the GDPR that you think might come into play and the actual action you want to take would maybe make this is good question.
    – nvoigt
    Feb 5, 2019 at 7:58

2 Answers 2

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GDPR is about YOUR personal right to access/change/erase your personal data. Not the data of your client. If you are employee of temp agency the final company that is "hiring" you cannot access your personal data (apart from data necessary to fulfil their law required obligations).

Also in such contracts "contact" means "inquiry temp agency employer for jobs offers or participate in employer hiring process"

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GDPR is about personal information and the right to access or transmit them.

The right to data access gives you the right to access your personal information, but not the information of any other person.

The answer to a right of access request includes two stages. First, the controller must check whether any personal data of the person seeking information is being processed at all. In any case, one must report a positive or negative result. If the answer should be positive, the second stage involves a whole range of information.

The right of access includes information about the processing purposes, the categories of personal data processed, the recipients or categories of recipients, the planned duration of storage or criteria for their definition, [...]. (Source)

Personal information include your name, adress, birthdate, telephone number, bank account and so on. They do not include information like adresses or telephone numbers of clients or other people you ever contacted, transcriptions of meetings or other documents you wrote yourself or are mentioned in.

If you want to contact a former client or require the contact information of a former client, that has nothing at all to do with GDPR. Weather such a clause in your contract is valid depends on your local laws. If it is valid, GDPR does not give you the right to break this clause.

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    The question is unclear, however, if company X is a former client and is a controller of the user's personal data, then GDPR grants the user certain information rights e.g. they can ask company X to clarify what (if any) of their data are being processed (gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr) or exercise the right to erasure (gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr). Notably, a contract with some other company can't prohibit that. A contractual clause "you're not allowed to contact company X" can be valid in general but not apply in those particular cases where it conflicts with the law.
    – Peteris
    Feb 7, 2019 at 1:19

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