Platform work
Couriers, drivers, riders and app-based freelancers. The EU adopted a directive that reverses who has to prove what — and puts limits on managing people by algorithm.
This module is new and every text in it is pending human legal verification. Treat it as orientation, not as something to act on.
Nothing here is in force nationally yet. Member states must transpose the directive by 2. prosince 2026; until each country writes it into national law, these rules do not yet give you a claim in that country. What already applies is the GDPR — see Your Data.
Primary source: Directive (EU) 2024/2831 — CELEX 32024L2831
Step-by-step legal guidance hasn't been verified in Čeština yet, so it's shown in English below. The interface is in Čeština.
Transposition across 27 countries
Who has written it into national law, and who is running out of time.
What the directive gives you
You are presumed to be an employee
Art. 5 · CELEX 32024L2831Where the facts show direction and control by the platform, the relationship is legally presumed to be employment — and it is the platform, not you, that has to prove otherwise. This reverses the usual burden of proof: you no longer have to build the case that you were really an employee. It applies in relevant administrative and judicial proceedings from 2 December 2026; before that date the national law of your country still decides, and member states may set the rules out differently when they transpose.
What the platform is forbidden to collect
Art. 7 · CELEX 32024L2831Automated monitoring and decision-making systems may not process data on your emotional or psychological state, may not intrude on your private conversations, and may not collect data while you are not working or offering work. They also may not try to predict whether you will exercise fundamental rights — such as joining a union — or infer protected characteristics like race, migration status, health or political views. Identifying you biometrically out of a crowd is prohibited; verifying that you are you, one-to-one, is not.
What they must tell you about the algorithm
Art. 9 · CELEX 32024L2831The platform must tell you, in writing and before your first working day, which of your data and actions are monitored, why, who receives that data, what categories of decision the systems take, which parameters influence those decisions — and on what grounds an account can be restricted, suspended or terminated. It must tell you again before any change that affects your working conditions, and on request. You get the details of the systems that affect you directly; the fuller picture goes to worker representatives and the authorities on request.
A human must decide to block you
Art. 10 · CELEX 32024L2831Any decision to restrict, suspend or terminate your account or your contract must be taken by a human being — not by the system alone. The platform must also monitor its automated systems and assess their impact on working conditions at least every two years, together with worker representatives, and the staff doing that oversight must be competent, trained and actually empowered to override an automated decision, with protection from being dismissed for doing so. Where the review finds a high risk of discrimination or of infringing rights, the system must be changed or dropped.
Getting an explanation and a review
Art. 11 · CELEX 32024L2831You can require an explanation of any automated decision, without undue delay, and discuss it with a named contact person at the platform. For the decisions that hurt — restricting, suspending or terminating your account, refusing payment, changing your contractual status, or anything with equivalent detriment — the platform must give you written reasons by the day the decision takes effect. You can then ask for a review: the platform has two weeks to reply with substantiated reasons. If the decision turns out to infringe your rights, it must put it right within two weeks or compensate you, and prevent it happening again.
Safety, pressure and harassment
Art. 12 · CELEX 32024L2831The platform must assess the risks its automated systems create — accidents, psychosocial pressure, ergonomic strain — and check whether its safeguards are adequate, then actually introduce preventive measures. It may not use those systems to put undue pressure on you or otherwise endanger your physical and mental health, and it must have working channels through which violence and harassment can be reported and acted on. If the app pushes you to ride faster to keep your rating, that is the situation this article is about.
Before the rules change, they must consult
Art. 13, Art. 14 · CELEX 32024L2831A platform may not introduce or substantially change its automated systems without first informing and consulting worker representatives; on larger platforms — over 250 workers in that member state — it must also pay for the expert help those representatives need to understand what is being proposed. Where there are no representatives, it must inform the workers directly, in writing and in plain, transparent language. In practice this is what turns a silent overnight change to the algorithm into something that has to be announced and argued about first.