Do workers have the right to digital disconnection and privacy against the use of video surveillance and geolocation devices?
After various legislative initiatives, The transposition into the legal system of the European General Data Protection Regulation has been the Organic Law 3/2018 from 5 December on Protection of Personal Data and Guarantee of Digital Rights (LOPDGDD onwards) who has introduced measures to guarantee the privacy of workers against the use of video surveillance and geolocation devices, as well as guaranteeing the right to digital disconnection outside of working hours.
The LOPDGDD has caused adding a new article to the status of workers, specifically, the Article 20 TO, whose statement has set the
"Workers' rights to privacy in relation to the digital environment and to disconnection".
What does the article of the LOPDGDD?
The Article 88 of the LOPDGDD expressly states that public workers and employees will have the right to digital disconnection in order to guarantee, outside legally or conventionally established working time, respecting your rest time, permits and vacations, as well as his personal and family privacy.
What are the modalities for exercising the right to disconnect?
The LOPDGDD has come to establish that the modalities of exercise of this right will attend to the nature and purpose of the employment relationship, and the right to reconcile work activity and personal and family life must be strengthened, and It must be adjusted to the provisions of collective bargaining The, failing that, to what was agreed between the company and the legal representatives of the workers.
How can my company use it?
It is important to note that this article establishes that the employer, after hearing the workers' representatives, will elaborate an internal policy aimed at workers, including management positions, in which the modalities for exercising the right to disconnection and the training and awareness-raising actions for staff on the reasonable use of technological tools will be defined to avoid the risk of computer fatigue.
Special mention makes the standard, in relation to the duty to preserve the right to digital disconnection in cases of full or partial performance of remote work, as well as at the employee's address linked to the use of technological tools for employment purposes.
"We will have to be attentive to the evolution of the digital environment promoted by the LOPDGDD in the framework of labor relations."
As you can see, we are facing a recent regulation, linked to new technologies in the field of work activity and the right to privacy in the digital environment promoted by the LOPDGDD, and we will have to be attentive to its evolution in the framework of labor relations, Taking into account that the implementation of the right to technological disconnection requires its implementation through collective bargaining, which is given a fundamental role, and its expression in the different sectoral collective agreements.
The recognition of the right to technological disconnection entails the implementation of specific and concrete measures that fully guarantee the exercise of this right, especially when the use of new technologies has become a tool for daily and constant use in labor relations.