USE OF COMPUTER COMPANY FOR PRIVATE PURPOSES 
In October 2008 I wrote a post in which he spoke of the need for companies to establish
standards of conduct or rules of use of computers they put at the disposal of workers. The reason for this need stemmed from a Supreme Court ruling which stated that although the computer was a tool owned by the company, it could not collect the information contained in the temporary files and use it in order to dismiss worker,
"no business having previously established rules for the use of computers." was ultimately declared the illegality of the trial, the absence of a warning upon the use and control of the computer system.
Companies are coming and showing great concern for the uses and abuses in many cases, that their employees have with personal computers available to them to do their job. Continuously complained of loss of time generated by navigation internet for private use, or the continuous exchange of emails passing files between friends. And not without reason complain as well as loss of productivity and the saturation of the server through unwanted e-mails, when they decide to fire that say "bully", the Social courts could issue rulings not to recognize these grounds for dismissal.
For good measure, many companies rushed to develop rules for use of their computers that typically are provided with details of both their intranets, and internal circulars and even in terms of the contracts themselves work. But in practice, are used in these rules to use anything?. I like to think so, because there are abuses, are the order of the day and have many losses to businesses. But unfortunately, the decisions of the courts are unpredictable and can send these rules to fret.
For example, I will discuss the decision 33/2010 of 12 January, the High Court of Madrid which I think is criticized by the legal uncertainty it creates. Bring your cause this statement in the appeal against another after the Labour Court No. 37 in Madrid, declaring procededente the dismissal of a worker who had been dismissed for misuse of a laptop that had been provided for their work .
In the first instance it was proved that the defendant company has an internal document or protocol on the use of electronic devices of general knowledge employees at the warning that the use of internet and email only allowed for commercial purposes is expressly forbidden to surf the Internet or use email for private use. These standards are also reflected in the company intranet. It has also been shown that upon being handed the laptop, signed a receipt in which it is recalled that the device is only for the exclusive use of the work for the company.
At one point, the worker assigned to the laptop started giving trouble and the computer technician decided to take the company to revise it because they felt he had the virus. To do this you by your username and password in order that the technician could check. To make technical checks confirmed that the computer was infected by virus and by examining the history of hits, it was found that the virus entered the access to websites unrelated to work and many of them were pornographic (were detailed in the termination letter was delivered to the worker). The computer technician at the Court also clarified that access to unsafe web pages and especially the pornographic content, it can even cause an infection of the entire computer network company's internal.
The court decision reflected the strength of the proven facts, based on the stated from the dismissal. In the dismissal letter stated that the conduct alleged against the plaintiff, consisting primarily of laptop use contrary to the instructions of the company under the terms stated in this communication constitutes a very serious offense of disobedience to superiors and fraud disloyalty or breach of trust in the procedures assigned. And in turn the sentence instance considers that the conduct of the actor is revealed as a serious breach of its contractual obligations guilty of significant enough to justify the dismissal, in view of the use of the facilities provided by the employer flouting the prohibitions or guidelines in this area, which includes a breach of good faith.
But the Board does not share this view and revoke the sentence, because if it is true that the actor has engaged in disobedience to the instructions received with regard to computer use, so that the story is factual not at all obvious injury to the Company which is alleged in the letter of dismissal to justify the business decision under paragraph e) of Article 52 of the applicable collective agreement, can be seen that in the letter itself is spoken clearly and simply a high risk of infection of the Company's internal network, with consequent damage that they may involve being put at risk the functioning of the system, and the risk of loss data, imputing the actor "has compromised the integrity and smooth functioning of the internal network" of the company. Ultimately the Court of Appeal did not consider that there is no serious breach of contract and significant enough to warrant the maximum penalty is dismissal.
is, appreciates that there has been no real harm in the absence of truly endangered the computer system of the company, but nothing comes to appreciate that this damage has existed since the time the team had to be a technician for repair. Neither appreciates the damage that can be quantified financially by the loss of working hours have been spent on surfing the web in private activities. Limited simply to say that the failure of the worker is worthy only of a minor infraction.
then what good are rules of use? Are they worthless?. And surfing the Internet for private use is not lower in yield because of work?. In my view, sentences how are you, nothing to help the legal security of companies regarding the use of computer systems available to their workers.
