Lisbon Appeal Court Upholds a Near-€15,000 Fine After a Firm Used a Company Car's GPS to Check a Saleswoman's Reports
The Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa confirmed a fine of nearly €15,000 against an employer who mined a company car's GPS trail to police a saleswoman's performance — a breach of Article 20 of the Labour Code.
An employer who trawled the location history of a company car's GPS to check whether a saleswoman's daily reports were accurate has been fined just under €15,000 — and the Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa (Lisbon Court of Appeal) has now confirmed the penalty. In a ruling handed down on 17 June 2026, the court treated the practice as a prohibited form of remote surveillance of workers, one of the most serious breaches an employer can commit under Portuguese labour law.
What the company did
The employee, a salesperson, was assigned a company vehicle fitted with a satellite tracker. Her employer accessed the record of where that vehicle had been and cross-checked it against the daily activity reports she filed, using the mismatch to question her performance. The labour inspectorate, the Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho (Authority for Working Conditions, or ACT), classified that as an unlawful use of a distance-monitoring device and imposed a fine of close to €15,000. The company appealed; the Lisbon Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge and upheld the sanction.
Why it is illegal
Article 20 of the Labour Code (Código do Trabalho) draws a hard line around what employers may do with cameras, trackers and other technology in the workplace. Such "remote surveillance means" (meios de vigilância a distância) may be installed for legitimate ends — protecting people and property, or the safety of production processes — but they may not be used to monitor an employee's professional performance. The court found that consulting the GPS trail specifically to police the saleswoman's output crossed exactly that line, making it a very serious administrative offence (contraordenação muito grave) under Article 20(1) and (4).
The distinction matters. A tracker in a fleet vehicle is not automatically unlawful: a firm can use geolocation to manage logistics, recover a stolen car or meet insurance requirements. What it cannot do is repurpose that data as a productivity monitor for the person behind the wheel. Portugal's data-protection regulator, the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (National Data Protection Commission, or CNPD), has long taken the same view, requiring that geolocation be limited to its stated purpose and that workers be told clearly what is being tracked and why.
What this means for you
- If you drive a company car: Your employer can track the vehicle for legitimate operational reasons, but using that history to judge how hard you are working — or to build a disciplinary case — is off-limits.
- Employers and small-business owners: Installing a tracker is the easy part; the legal risk lies in how the data is used. Repurposing it to check performance can turn a routine fleet tool into a five-figure fine.
- Know your notice rights: Workers must be informed of the existence and purpose of any monitoring. Covert performance-tracking through devices sold as "security" is precisely what the Labour Code forbids.
- Remote and hybrid staff: The same principle extends to software that logs keystrokes, screen time or location. Monitoring aimed at measuring output, rather than protecting assets, sits on the wrong side of Article 20.
The ruling is a reminder that Portugal treats workplace surveillance as a question of purpose, not just consent. Employers may watch their vans; they may not, the courts have again confirmed, use those vans to watch their staff.
