As explained in our previous articles, the Commission is preparing a Decision that requires all staff to provide their private mobile to be contacted during their rest time.
Credit where credit is due, the last draft proposed by HR has improved considerably from the previous versions, for instance:
- Recalling that staff members are not at all times on stand-by duty and should not be constantly reachable.
- A definition of emergency: exceptional and unforeseen circumstances requiring action that cannot wait until the next working day.
- Mention that private means of communication should be used only exceptionally.
- Monitoring provisions including the involvement of the joint committee on Hybrid Working.
However, the draft raises still important concerns, the most important being the lack of provisions to prevent abuses and remedies for staff in case of misuse.
Generation 2004 and all the other unions in the Commission (The Front Commun) have proposed improvements, such as:
- Introducing technical guarantees to ensure respect of Privacy regulation, including mandatory tracking and logging of all accesses to private phones.
- Ensuring that private contact details are not exported, copied, or shared beyond the specific emergency context.
- Approaching abuses, particularly repetitive ones, as a serious disciplinary matter.
- Clarifying what is expected of an official or other servant to avoid unreasonable expectations when contacting staff on their private phones during their disconnection period.
- Including a binding provision that no disciplinary or administrative consequences shall follow from a failure to respond to a contact made via private means outside working hours.
In addition, Generation 2004 requested a political concertation on the draft decision, what basically means that we want to discuss directly with the Commissioner in charge of the Decision.
Generation 2004 understands the legitimate need for urgent communications in genuine security and business continuity situations, but even the best intentions can turn out into implementation nightmares.
Recently the Commission informed staff that “the Commission’s central infrastructure managing mobile devices was targeted by a cyber-attack, which may have resulted in access to staff names and mobile numbers.” While the Commission claims that “No compromise of mobile devices was detected”, the fact is that the Commission intends to store massive amounts of staff private information.
We have also detected that DIGIT is forcing staff to use their private mobile phone to login into Ares.
These trends can lead to irreversible situations that have to be prevented well in advance.
Generation 2004 and all the other unions are committed to reaching a balanced outcome that protects both the institution’s legitimate security needs and staff members’ fundamental rights.
Generation 2004 remains available for discussion ensuring that the final decision respects the rights and well-being of all staff members.
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