Читать книгу Employment Law Update - Jonathan Ingber - Страница 47

With the proliferation of smartphones and GPS-equipped laptops, tablets, and other devices that enable a device's location to be tracked, the opportunities to monitor an employee's location via device monitoring are extensive. Many cars also are equipped with GPS, and virtually all cars manufactured post-2008 have software that records the car's speed, direction, and braking history immediately prior to an accident. Again, if an employer anticipates tracking employee locations using a device or automotive GPS, the employer would be wise to obtain the employee's acknowledgment to this monitoring in the APA to ensure that the employee cannot assert a privacy right pertaining to his or her location or the location of the device. In some states such as California, Illinois, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Texas, state law prohibits the use of mobile tracking technologies without the consent of the owner of the device or vehicle. Although the company's use of tracking information could be deemed as “company consent,” having the employee sign an APA that acknowledges the right of the employer to use GPS to track the location of the device or vehicle will avoid any later claim that the employee's consent was not obtained. In legal terms, the employee's signature on the APA demonstrates that the employee had notice of, and consented to, the company's right to use GPS to monitor the location of the device or vehicle (and thus the employee's location, at least when the employee is carrying the device or in the vehicle).