Tele-Draft Advisory Website - the head controls my “email”

The head controls my “email”

According to one recent sentence of the Supreme Court, the companies can watch how their workers use the mail, they have although it more difficult to read the messages Can be safe a worker that no hidden eye of the company reads its electronic mails? The mail has become lately an indispensable tool in the majority of the uses, but the uncertainty on its use and control has been great until recently. The panorama, fortunately, has been sprightly enough thanks to one recent sentence of the Supreme Court. “The companies can control the professional mail of their employees to verify that they fulfill his tasks, to see the number of messages that they send, whereupon weight… To these controls usually it admits them justice without majors exigencies”, explains Javier Aparicio Salom, partner of the department of Intellectual Property and Protection of Data of Cuatrecasas. What they have more complicated is to accede to the content of the post office. “They are only possible to be read the email when serious circumstances, when exist other means of investigation cannot be used. The invasion of the privacy always must be the possible minim”, points Aparicio Salom. “Any control system must be suitable, proportional and necessary”, finishes off Javier Ribas, partner of Landwell- PricewaterhouseCoopers. The companies do not have unlimited power at the time of watching. The crimes that they persecute more (serious disloyalties, to keep awake secret to the competition…) they are “abstract, which leaves a great margin to the interpretation, but this does not mean that they can understand what agrees to them upon every moment, but must value if the circumstances are as serious as to justify a limitation of the liberties of the employees”, indicates Javier Aparicio, of Cuatrecasas. The companies often move, then, in marshy and little clear lands, with the risk of going too far itself in their control, and so that can suppose legally for them. More and more dismissals by an evil use To protect the intellectual and industrial property are the main preoccupation of the companies at the time of exerting controls that every time are majors, as they stress Aparicio and Ribas. To know what dedicates the workers exactly its labor day also matters, although in background. Official data do not exist, but both expert lawyers in this matter, as much Javier Ribas as Javier Aparicio, assure that the number of dismissals has grown for this reason. The bracket of sanctioning measures when an employee is hunted in fraganti oscillates between not doing anything and persecuting it penal. The workers, that yes, must right to know if its electronic mail of company can be controlled. How one inquires into it depends on each company. In Cuatrecasas, for example, they advise the company/signature of a document that explains the norms of use of the different tools from work. Ribas, on the other hand, of Landwell- PricewaterhouseCoopers, thinks that “he is recommendable that settles down specific clauses in work contracts or, even, in the agreements”. The personal post office, inviolable All these controls affect the professional accounts of mail, but never to the personal. These are prote'ge'es of total form by the Penal Code, like a traditional letter or the telephone. One is absolutely private and personal mass media. “Any attempt of the industralist to accede to its content without a judicial mandate will be constituent of crime”, emphasizes Aparicio Salom. The sentence dictated by the Supreme Court the past September has turned out key to seat the criteria that from now on will follow the judges in this subject. “The jurisprudence was not univocal and it generated insecurity legal and uncertainty when to determine a corporative policy for the use of the systems”, comments Javier Ribas. “The sentence of the Supreme Court has eliminated this uncertainty, but now the companies must realize a effort to adapt to the new criteria, since in the majority of the companies there are no norms”, it concludes the partner of Landwell- PricewaterhouseCoopers. To sail outside hour To control how the workers use Internet is simpler for the companies. It is enough with a permanent monitoring of navigation to know what people use more and how. The courts usually understand that “this invasion of the privacy seems suitable”, according to Javier Aparicio, of Cuatrecasas. The objective, in this case, is to hunt less to the applied employees. And what happens when somebody remains outside its schedule seeing Internet? If the company allows to continue in the job without paying hours extra, any problem does not exist. And if what it remains seeing it is contained pornographic? “Although it can socially be rejectable, it does not constitute an illicit activity generally”, affirms Aparicio. “Different Question is if the content is constituent of a crime, like the infantile pornography”, clarifies the partner of Cuatrecasas. Beyond which the content is or noncrime, Javier Ribas, of Landwell- PricewaterhouseCoopers, aims that “the company also can be interested in not being consuming of certain pages not to jeopardize its reputation”. LORENZO CALONGE (the extracted News of the Country)

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