Remote control of workers: additional operating provisions from the Labour Inspectorate

In Circular Letter no. 5 of 19 February 2018, the National Labour Inspectorate provided further operating provisions on the “new” Article 4, Workers’ Statute. In particular, the Inspectorate specified that, due to actual reasons of control, a video surveillance system may also monitor the workers without any limitations as to the camera angle, the blacking out of the face of the operator or the specific indication of the position of the cameras and their exact number. This is so because oftentimes the conditions of places and the positions of merchandise or production plants is subject to continuous changes in the course of time. Only for systems that start operating when workers are present, observance of the principles of proportionality, fairness and not excess set out in the Privacy Code should also be verified. According to the Labour Inspectorate, the use of video surveillance systems based on IP technology can also be allowed; remote access to these in real time must be authorized only in exceptional cases, while access to recorded images shall be traced in order to allow storage of “log-ins” for a period of at least six months. Regarding the collection and processing of biometric data, the Labour Inspectorate has accepted the indications of the Italian Data Protection Authority, setting out that these devices are legitimate only if they are considered indispensable tools to perform the work as they aim at limiting access to “sensitive” areas or allowing use of hazardous machinery only by qualified personnel. The new provisions of the Labour Inspectorate, even if they remove many doubts, basically further prove that the application of the matter at hand is uncertain and that it is necessary to make personalized inquiries into each specific case.