2 December 2026 is the deadline by which Member States must comply with Directive (EU) 2024/2831 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 on improving working conditions in platform work (Article 29) (EUR-Lex). In Italy the draft implementing legislative decree, based on the delegation in Article 11 of Law No 91 of 13 June 2025, was approved on preliminary examination by the Council of Ministers on 23 July 2026 (Italian Government) and transmitted to Parliament as Government act No 433; according to the dossier of the parliamentary research services, the deadline for exercising the delegation expires on 2 November 2026 (Chamber of Deputies). On 16 September the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante) gave a favourable opinion subject to conditions (Garante); on 1 October the Labour Committee of the Chamber of Deputies gave a favourable opinion with observations (Chamber of Deputies). The final examination does not appear in the press releases of the Council of Ministers published up to that of 2 October 2026 (Italian Government). We dealt with the general framework in commenting on ILO Convention No 193 and the European directive, and with the automated deactivation of accounts in connection with the fine imposed on Uber and Article 22 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679. Our concern here is a narrow one: whether and how the rules on algorithmic management bear on gender discrimination. The texts call for a more cautious reading than the subject suggests.
Chapter III of the Directive: limits on processing, transparency, oversight and review
Chapter III, “Algorithmic management”, comprises Articles 7 to 15; its measures protecting personal data also apply to persons who work without an employment contract or employment relationship (Article 1(2)). Article 7 prohibits platforms from processing, by means of automated monitoring or decision-making systems, “any personal data on the emotional or psychological state” of the person and “any personal data in relation to private conversations”, from collecting data while the person is not offering or performing platform work, and from processing data to infer certain personal characteristics; the prohibitions apply “from the start of the recruitment or selection procedure”. Article 8 brings the processing within the impact assessment under Article 35 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679; Article 9 requires information also on the “main parameters” of decision-making systems. Article 10 provides for human oversight and, in paragraph 5, reserves to “a human being” decisions to restrict, suspend or terminate the contractual relationship or the account; Article 11 grants the right to an explanation and to review (EUR-Lex).
The textual evidence: equal treatment in the general provisions of the Directive
The Italian text of the Directive does not contain the words “genere” (gender) and “donne” (women); the term “lavoratrici” (women workers) occurs only once, in recital 10, where the list of Union acts already in force mentions pregnant workers. The English text likewise contains neither “gender” nor “women”. Nor does Article 7(1)(e) include sex: it prohibits processing data to infer, among other things, racial or ethnic origin, migration status, disability, state of health, trade union membership, “sex life or sexual orientation”.
The points of contact with equality are provisions of general scope. Article 10(1) requires a regular evaluation, “and in any event every two years”, of the impact of decisions taken or supported by automated systems, including, where applicable, their impact on “equal treatment at work”; paragraph 3 requires the platform, where “a high risk of discrimination at work” is identified, to take the steps necessary, including the modification of the system or the discontinuation of its use. Recital 49 lists among the rights whose infringement requires the decision to be rectified “their right to non-discrimination”; Article 12(5) calls for preventive measures, including effective reporting channels, “including from violence and harassment” (EUR-Lex). In our view, none of these provisions is written with gender in mind, but each of them also covers discrimination on grounds of sex.
For the prohibitions concerning emotional or psychological state and private conversations, by contrast, the text establishes no link with equality: recital 40 merely restates their content and recital 47 observes that “Monitoring by electronic means can be intrusive”. Presenting those prohibitions as safeguards against gender discrimination would be a reading that the texts do not support.
Official data on platform work: EIGE and Eurofound
The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) published in January 2022 a report based on a survey of almost 5,000 platform workers (EIGE). According to EIGE, a higher share of women than men say they do this work because they can combine it with household and family commitments (36 per cent against 28 per cent); flexibility is, however, limited, and the use of time-tracking software that deducts from pay the time considered to be of low productivity may pose a particular threat to those caring for small children (EIGE).
More recent is the survey by Eurofound and the European Labour Authority published on 28 May 2026, covering 3,830 people in 15 Member States and limited to work performed entirely online: the workforce is predominantly male, with a gender distribution that mirrors that of the traditional labour market, and 43 per cent are subject to comprehensive control systems combining intensive surveillance, gamification and reduced autonomy (Eurofound). In the published summary the figure on algorithmic control is not disaggregated by gender.
These data do not prove discrimination. If, however, such software weighs particularly on those caring for small children, and family reconciliation is cited more often by women, an indirect effect on gender is in our view a plausible hypothesis, to be verified. The periodic evaluation under Article 10 is where such an effect can come to light.
The Italian transposition draft: equality between the sexes through Law No 132/2025
Since we have not consulted the text of the draft, we report its content on the basis of indirect official sources. The press release of the Council of Ministers states that the draft prohibits, among other things, “inferring information on beliefs, health conditions, trade union membership or sexual orientation” (our translation) and provides for corrective measures “up to the discontinuation of the use of the system, where discriminatory risks emerge” (Italian Government). According to the Garante’s opinion (decision No 624 of 16 September 2026), the draft consists of 27 articles; Article 1(2) requires it to be interpreted consistently with Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act) and with the principles of Law No 132 of 23 September 2025, recalling among other things “non-discrimination” and “equality between the sexes”; Article 9 provides for an evaluation, at least every two years, of the effects of automated decisions on working conditions and on equal treatment and, in paragraph 7, for the nullity of decisions to restrict, suspend or terminate the relationship or to close the account that are not taken exclusively by a human being (Garante).
Equality between the sexes is among the principles of Article 3(1) of Law No 132 (Normattiva), and Article 11(3) of the same Law establishes that artificial intelligence in the organisation and management of the employment relationship guarantees the inviolable rights of the worker “without discrimination on grounds of sex” (our translation) (Normattiva). The guiding criteria of Article 11 of Law No 91 of 2025, by contrast, mention neither discrimination nor equality (Normattiva). The express reference to sex enters the Italian legal order through Law No 132, not through the Directive.
The relationship with Legislative Decree No 179/2026: the selection stage
Legislative Decree No 179 of 7 October 2026, which aligns the Italian legal order with the AI Act and in force from 23 October 2026, excludes in Article 41(1) from the “final decisions concerning the establishment of the employment relationship” the “activities of searching for and selecting applications, even where they entail non-admission to the subsequent stages of the selection” (Official Gazette (Gazzetta Ufficiale)); we examined its framework in writing about the Italian implementation of the AI Act and, for automated pre-selection, in discussing gender bias in personnel selection. The Directive takes a different approach: the prohibitions in Article 7 operate from the start of the recruitment or selection procedure, and Article 9(5) requires candidates to be informed, before the start of the procedure, of the automated systems used in that procedure (EUR-Lex); according to the Garante’s opinion, the draft takes over both provisions (Article 6 and Article 8(6)). Article 41, moreover, is addressed to the employer, whereas Article 10(5) of the Directive protects every person performing platform work. For platforms the selection stage remains subject to prohibitions and information duties that Article 41 does not provide for.
Critical aspects: the method of periodic evaluation, the list in Article 7 and oversight
The first aspect concerns the method of periodic evaluation: neither the Directive nor, as far as appears from the Garante’s opinion, the draft requires the outcomes of automated decisions to be examined with a breakdown by sex, and the opinion approved by the Labour Committee of the Chamber of Deputies touches on neither equality nor gender. In our view, without this breakdown an indirect effect of the kind reported by EIGE is unlikely to be detected, because an indirect discriminatory effect shows up in the distribution of outcomes, not in the individual case. This is the limit of case-by-case review already observed in the Uber matter.
The second aspect concerns Article 7: the absence of sex from the list does not make discriminatory processing lawful, since it remains subject to the general rules, but it deprives the Directive of a specific instrument.
The third aspect concerns the effectiveness of oversight: the Garante asked that the human resources assigned to it be “directly connected to the top management of the company” and pointed to the risk of a double track of penalties between the National Labour Inspectorate and the Garante (Garante). On these points depends the ability to correct systems when a risk of discrimination emerges.
Conclusions
The Government still has to complete the procedure so that the decree, as indicated by the Ministry of Labour, enters into force by 2 December 2026 (Ministry of Labour). In the Directive gender equality is not an expressly protected category and must be verified by measuring outcomes. Platforms would be well advised to design the periodic evaluation now, including an analysis of outcomes by sex, to coordinate it with the data protection impact assessment and to document the measures taken when a risk of discrimination emerges. No external check is expected in the short term: Article 30 of the Directive entrusts the Commission with a review by 2 December 2029 and identifies as matters for particular attention intermediaries and the legal presumption, not equality.
Author: Valentina Grazia Sapuppo
