Babiš Backs Spying on Officials: He Monitored Finance Ministry Staff Himself Back in 2019

Czech Prime Minister and ANO leader Andrej Babiš has backed Health Minister Adam Vojtěch amid a scandal over the monitoring of ministry employees' work computers. According to Babiš, he himself used the services of the same firm back when he headed the Ministry of Finance.

"I learned from the media that the minister had hired the firm Riant, but I fully support it. When I was finance minister, I hired the same company. I can recommend it to any minister, especially when part of the staff doesn't even work in the same buildings as management," Babiš told Seznam Zprávy.

He said the analysis of computer activity allegedly revealed that officials had been viewing pornographic websites. "I was shocked by how many employees — and for how long — were watching porn, hour-long films, shopping online, or looking for new jobs," the prime minister added.

Health Ministry Staff Protest

News of a protest by Health Ministry employees over the surveillance of their work computers broke last week. Staff claim the checks were carried out without warning, were excessively broad in scope, took place even outside working hours, and may have exposed their private correspondence.

Critics argue that such actions violate the law, which allows employers to monitor the use of work equipment only under specific conditions. Employees have filed complaints with the labor inspectorate and the Office for Personal Data Protection, and have drawn up a petition signed by several dozen people.

"Among the data collected were, for example, bills, bank statements, and medical records. It also cannot be ruled out that the data and correspondence of third parties who worked with ministry staff were caught up in the surveillance," the petition states.

The Ministry of Health reportedly tried to conceal the monitoring — in violation of the law, it failed to publish its contract with Riant in the public contracts register. Only after pressure from journalists did the ministry reach a settlement with the company. The ministry had acted the same way back in 2019, during Vojtěch's first term as minister.

The Surveillance Began Under Babiš in 2015

It has now emerged that the firm Riant was first brought in to monitor Ministry of Finance staff by Andrej Babiš back in 2015. At the time, Adam Vojtěch himself was working at the ministry as an adviser to Babiš.

The contract between Riant and the Finance Ministry, worth more than one million crowns, could not be located — at the time, there was no obligation yet to publish such contracts in the register. The ministry approached the firm directly, taking advantage of a legal exemption for small purchases that allowed it to bypass a transparent tender process.

Both Vojtěch and Babiš insist that the company does not monitor the content of employees' personal correspondence. "The firm guarantees it does not track the content of communications. Privacy is preserved — only the type of computer use is monitored," Babiš said.

Vojtěch even wrote to staff claiming the exercise was purely about collecting statistical data, and that the information gathered could not reveal what any specific individual had actually been doing. However, according to internal ministry documents, managers received reports on individual employees.

A similar practice was reportedly used during the surveillance carried out under Babiš at the Finance Ministry, when data was collected on specific, named employees. "Following the analysis, ten staff referents left the Ministry of Finance, two of whom were still in their probationary period," the ministry itself reported at the time.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz