The electronic control of the employer in Portugal

Abstract

The way the work is made has been suffering in the last years countless changes related with the huge increase and development of the use of new information and communication technologies in the work relationship. The theme of privacy and surveillance of the employer have been turning in a matter of considerable interest and surrounded of great controversy in the last years all around the world and Portugal is no exception. The technological innovation allows, through several instruments as the use of video surveillance, GPS, RFID, control of electronic communications, control of online social networks or the internet, the continuous surveillance and monitoring of the workers and new questions arise in the horizon. These new forms of control constitute powerful means of surveillance and of memorization, but also of analysis and of interference in the people’ privacy, and one of the major challenges put today is the regulation of this new forms of control in the workplace because the advancement of modern technology has made it possible to collect and store information on a seemingly limitless scale, while also facilitating access to it. The question that arises before the use of this technology is to know what limits should be established. And the answer is related, it seems, with the principles of data protection, mainly, in Portugal, articles 20, 21 and 22 of Portuguese Labour Code and also the Portuguese Data Protection Act, Law number 67/98, from 26th October, and, most of all, the legitimate principle, the proportionality principle and the transparency principle. This as led to a new form of control much more intrusive and that controls almost everything even the way the worker thinks.