DOI: 10.5176/2251-2853_3.1.143
Authors: Teresa Coelho Moreira
Abstract:
The way the work is made has been suffering in the last years countless changes related with the enormous increase and development of the use of new information and communication technologies in the work relationship. The theme of privacy and surveillance of the employer have been turning in a matter of
considerable interest and surrounded of great controversy in the last years all around the world and Portugal is no exception.
The technological innovation allows, through several instruments as the use of radio-frequency identification, the continuous surveillance and monitoring of the workers and new questions arise in the horizon. These new forms of control constitute powerful means of surveillance and of memorization,
but also of analysis and of interference in the people’ privacy, and one of the major challenges put today is the regulation of this new forms of control in the workplace because the advancement of modern technology has made it possible to collect and store information on a seemingly limitless scale, while also facilitating access to it. And the question that arises before the use of this technology is to know what limits should be established. And the answer is related, it seems, with the principles of data protection, mainly, in Portugal, article 17 of Portuguese Labour Code related to protection of personal data and also the Portuguese Data Protection Act, Law number 67/98,from 26th October, and, most of all, the legitimate principle, the proportionality principle and the transparency principle.
The RFID has increase exponentially in the last years, with countless applications in different sections and with very different purposes, allowing to follow and control not only objects but also people, especially workers, what has been originating several problems and issues in Portuguese Labour Law related to the protection of workers' personal data and the surveillance by the employer.
Keywords: Privacy, Data protection, workers, RFID, Portugal
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