A public entity has demanded the payment of a compensation for the breach of the prior notice period imposed by law to employees who intend to terminate a contract. However, the workers at stake have ceased their contracts since they had been employed in other public administration services, following public recruitment procedures to which they had applied. The Ombudsman urged the Hospital Centre to return the amounts collected as a compensation, since such compensation only proves to be due in cases of termination of the public employment bond, which is not the case when there is a mere succession of contracts with different public entities. • Case Q-5978/16 Entity addressed: Municipality of Mafra Date: 2016.12.06 Subject: Using geo-location devices’ information to control the professional performance of workers Status: No objections from the entity addressed The plaintiff stated that the City Hall of Mafra had confronted him with information from a GPS device, in order to question the veracity of an activity report the worker had delivered for a specific date. Article 20 of the Code Labour expressly forbids the use of any means of remote surveillance to control the performance of workers. To this effect, the National Committee for Protection of Data has already stated that geolocation devices, such as GPS installed in service vehicles, phones, tablets, etc., should be considered “means of remote surveillance”. Consequently, the Ombudsman made the Municipality of Mafra aware that the information extracted from these devices cannot be used to this purposes or, a fortiori, as evidence in disciplinary procedures. • 140 |