New technologies and powers of control of workers for the employer in Spain

Abstract

The new information and communication technologies launch new challenges for the protection of fundamental rights in labour relations. Their use in fact allows new intense and pervasive forms of control and supervision of worker activities hitherto unthinkable.This study analyses the situation of Spanish law, both in the light of the technique of the balancing of fundamental rights using the proportionality test, used by legal theory and by the Constitutional Tribunal, and through the analysis of settled case law on the most common methods of remote control of workers (control of electronic mail, installation of video surveillance systems, geolocalization). The conclusion is that, in the absence of more specific legislative development, the assessment criteria are likely to be overly general and conditioned by a case law investigation that produces different solutions according to the specific nature of the actual case.

Keywords

• employer’s monitoring powers
• privacy
• employee’s dignity