The Labour Chamber of the French Supreme Court has recently upheld a decision against an employer that unlawfully used a geolocation device to track the company car of one of its salesmen. Although the company notified the salesman that such a device would be used to optimise productivity by analysing the time spent on business trips, it was in fact used to monitor the salesman’s working hours, which ultimately led to a pay cut. According to the French Labour Code, employers must give employees advance notice before using any device to collect personal information about them or using it for a specific purpose.
The Court ruled that the use of a geolocation device to monitor the activities of employees is lawful only if such monitoring cannot be conducted by other means. In this case, the use of the device was unjustified since the salesman’s employment contract allowed him to determine his own schedule via a daily report of his activities. The Court added that the use of a geolocation device constitutes a data processing activity for which employers must submit a registration with the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) (C Cass, Ch. Social, 10-18036).