Can employees clock in with their mobile and can the employer record their location?

Clocking in by mobile is valid

Spanish law does not require any particular system for the registro de jornada (the mandatory daily record of employees' working hours): what matters is that it records the actual start and finish times and is reliable. A mobile app meets the requirement perfectly and has clear advantages over paper or a clock on the wall: it works for staff at several sites, outdoors or working from home, and each entry is saved instantly.

What about location?

Spain's Data Protection Act (Article 90 of the LOPDGDD) allows employers to use geolocation to monitor work, provided they:

• Inform employees, and where applicable their representatives, in advance, expressly, clearly and unambiguously: that it exists, what it is used for and what rights they have.
• Use it only for that purpose (checking where staff clock in) and in a proportionate way.

Proportionate means recording the location only at the moment of clocking in or out, not tracking the employee throughout the working day or outside it. If an employee does not share their location, the sensible approach is to record the entry anyway and flag it as "no location".

Good practice

• Give staff an information notice about the clocking system and the use of location.
• Set a radius around each workplace: entries made far away are flagged, without preventing staff from clocking in.
• If the system is run by an external provider, sign a data processing agreement with them (Article 28 GDPR) and check that the data is stored in the European Union.
• Do not store health data (sick notes, diagnoses) in the clocking system: the type of absence is enough.

Want to go paperless? With Easy Fichajes your staff clock in from their mobile and you have the record ready for the Labour Inspectorate: £/€22 a month with 5 employees included, no tie-in.