Corona App is here: labor lawyer explains legal requirements
The German Corona-Warning-App is there and can be downloaded since Tuesday for free. The Installation on the Smartphone is voluntary, but some workers fear that they may be obliged by their employer to use. A labor lawyer explained the legal requirements.
The Federal government commissioned Corona-Warning-App is here. For Tuesday available for free Download. As it is said in a communication to the App is a important contribution in order to limit the COVID-19 pandemic. “The use of the App is voluntary,” writes the government. But what if the employer wants to require the use of?
The chain of infection identify faster and more comprehensive
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The new App is intended to help to identify chains of Infection faster and more comprehensive and effective to interrupt.
If each and every Single one of will quickly inform you about a possible infection with the novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 through contact with an Infected, he or she can react quickly and protect themselves and others, the Federal government.
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Although the Installation is on the Smartphone for citizens on a voluntary basis. Can require companies to their workers to use and demand, to inform the employer in case of an Alarm?
And must workers stay at home? And who pays the wage? Dr. Michael Rubin, a Professor of employment law at the Fresenius University of applied Sciences in Hamburg, explained in a recent communication from the legal requirements.
Installation for employees to volunteer
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The use of the new Corona-Warning App should be voluntary. According to the Fresenius University of applied Sciences of the German Advisory Council on the consumers ‘ calls for questions (SVRV), which advises the Federal Ministry of justice, in addition, the creation of a legal basis for the Warning App.
Regardless of the question of whether companies can require their workers due to the obligations arising from the employment relationship of a use.
As the communication explains, requires a processing of personal data, in particular, as in the present case, particularly protected health information (art. 4, No. 15, art. 9 DS-GMO), according to the privacy law of a permit (art. 6 DS-GMO).
“In labour law, this can be a legal regulation, an operating agreement or the consent of the employee,” explains Rubin.
The information, according to the Federal data protection law allows the concretised in article 26 of the data protection legal requirements in the employment relationship, the employer, the processing of personal data is the extent for the purposes of the employment relationship.
“An arrangement for the use of workers may not be supported here, however, that,” says Rubin. According to the experts, the Installation of the App is also available for workers so that workers on a voluntary basis. “This applies even if the employee uses a service phone.”
Also, an operating agreement could Otherwise be regulated because it can not regulate the personal lives of the employees, the works Council and the employer.
You must inform the company in case of Alarm the Alert App?
If workers use indoor or employee the App but, and this indicates an Alarm, the employer must be informed of this. “This requires the workers side of the thoughtfulness duty,” says Professor Rubin.
“The employer must be informed of the suspicion of an infection, and then in turn check if he sends the workers, first home,” says Rubin, or, where appropriate, for other employees and employee protection measures.
“The employer can require the employee to get over the existing infection risk for further information, to be able to do a risk assessment with the involvement of the company doctor to make.”
When the continued payment of wages is
If the employee or the employee is displayed, an Alarm, she or he is in the but is otherwise asymptomatic and complaint-free, she or he is also not incapable of work. The company must make, therefore, no continued payment of wages in case of illness.
The employer decides to send the employees home, so this is to be paid, of course, in this time, by the employer.
“Labor lawyers speak in such a case, of a paid leave,” explains the lawyer. A right to paid time off the employee has not, however, even in the case of an in-App Alarm. “You can provide the employee with his activity in the Home-Office, so inform the parties, of course, to this as well.”
A refund claim for the salary paid free status of employer only if the employee is also officially under quarantine. “The infection protection law provides for this in § 56 Abs. 1 corresponding regulations,“ explains Rubin. (ad)