Installation of video cameras requires the union authorization or an administrative permit

The Court of Cassation, criminal division, with judgement No. 22148/2017, ruled once again on the possibility for the employer to install video cameras without implementing the union directive as per art. 4 of Law No. 300/70. In the case in hand, the Sole Director of a company decided to install at a local subsidiary a video surveillance system that consisted of two video cameras connected through the Wi-Fi and ADSL network to a monitor with which it was possible to monitor the work of employees. The Sole Director did not enter into a specific union agreement for it (nor he requested an administrative permit) but informed the employees about it and they authorized the monitoring performed by the employer. After the proceedings filed against the Sole Director, the latter was sentenced to pay a fine of 600 euro pursuant to article 38 of the Workers’ Charter. In particular, the Court of Cassation identified as unlawful the behaviour of the employer due to the fact that art. 4 of the Workers’ Charter has the goal of protecting a collective asset and not an individual one. For this reason, an employee, not having contractual authority equal to that of the employer, cannot authorize the latter to perform specific actions without prior authorization of the union representatives where expressly established by the law. Therefore, the Court of Cassation confirmed once again that the need to install equipment – whenever such equipment is installed to perform remote monitoring of the work activity – be preceded by an agreement between the employer and union representatives of the workers or, lacking an agreement, by a permit issued by an administrative authority. Otherwise the installation in question is unlawful and will give rise to criminal sanctions.