Industry 4.0 and the law: the smartphone in the company in compliance with the law

As part of a workshop in Stuttgart, we will clarify the legal framework conditions that arise in connection with the use of private and business smartphones in the company. The use of smartphone apps, in particular messengers, and the effects of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will also be discussed. Aspects of employment law and regulatory aspects will also be discussed and the question of how to prevent industrial espionage will be addressed. In addition to legal solutions, technical design options will also be presented. Please register at short notice; the number of participants is limited.

In most companies, one of the following two situations can be found:

• Employees have a smartphone for private use and also a smartphone for business use.

• Employees use their private or business smartphone "dual", i.e. for private and business purposes.

Both situations are unsatisfactory. Either you have to carry and manage two smartphones or only one smartphone is used, albeit with a latent guilty conscience due to the mixing of data.

In addition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to clearly separate private and business matters. For example, each person will only have one Xing or LinkedIn account, even if two smartphones are to be used in the company. Another example: A professional contact who you gave your cell phone number to at an appointment now contacts you via WhatsApp. Or: You initially communicated with a colleague at work via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, but this contact option is now also used for business coordination, e.g. for making appointments with customers or for calling in sick.

How should we deal with this social and technical development? A mere ban will help in very few cases. Many companies simply do not comply with the ban on such smartphone use and violations are often tolerated. And this is certainly to the benefit of the company, as it allows employees to be better integrated into everyday working life.

However, many legal aspects are completely unknown. Did you know, for example, that the WhatsApp T&Cs prohibit "any non-private use" (although individual permission can be granted)? Or did you know that encrypted data is also subject to data protection laws and that simply taking a photo with a smartphone can lead to the betrayal of business and trade secrets?

In a workshop, the legal framework conditions are presented and possible solutions are shown, whereby everyone can decide for themselves and their company which technologies to use, which design measures to take and which risks to take.

An excerpt from the topics

• Use of messengers (e.g. WhatsApp, Signal, Google Hangouts, Skype)

  • Data protection aspects of contact data and content data

  • Backup systems

  • Terms of use of the messengers

• Installation and use of apps

  • Use of apps for private and professional purposes

  • Data protection implications

  • Choice of private or professional account for the respective smartphone system

• Employment law

  • Access by the employer to smartphone data despite permitted private use

  • Constant availability and the Working Hours Act

  • Principle of equal treatment among employees for business smartphones

  • pecuniary tax advantage through the provision of a smartphone

  • Permissibility of consent in the employment relationship and under the GDPR

  • Confiscation of smartphones and access blocking in the event of termination

• Industrial espionage
  

  • Betrayal of business and trade secrets and breach of know-how contracts through photographs and cloud backups

  • Seizures at airports

• Duty of confidentiality of persons subject to professional secrecy
  Certain professional groups are subject to a duty of confidentiality, e.g. in-house lawyers (with special features), doctors, youth counselors, state-recognized social educators and tax consultants. Therefore, a purely data protection law design is not sufficient.

• Sector-specific regulatory requirements
  z. e.g. hygiene or safety regulations

• Retention obligations under commercial law
  z. e.g. with regard to WhatsApp messages