Unlawful implementation of a location-based system sanctioned by court

In France, employers who want to monitor employees’ use of company cars using location-based systems must comply with labor and data protection laws. An employer who intended to dismiss an employee for serious misconduct because his vehicle’s location-based system revealed that he used the company car for personal purposes and violated the highway code, has learned this the hard way.

In a ruling of September 14, 2010, the social chamber of the Court of Appeal of Dijon stated that the dismissal of an employee justified by evidence produced by a location-based system in violation of labor and data protection laws was invalid (i.e, not based on a real and serious ground) because it was based on unlawful evidence.

The court considered that the location-based system had not been implemented lawfully because employees had neither been informed of its implementation nor of the personal data processing involved and because the location-based system had not been notified to the CNIL. The employer claimed having provided employees with an internal memo informing them of the use of technical means to ease travels and client assistance. However, this document failed to refer to a “location-based system.”

The employer has been sentenced to pay the employee 8,000 euros in damages, which  corresponds to the amount the employee would have been paid by the employer had he not been unduly dismissed for serious misconduct. Moreover, the employer has been sentenced to pay 1,000 euros in damages to the employee for bad faith performance of the employment contract by the unlawful implementation of a location-based system.