ne réduit pas à néant son expectative de vie privée

09:09 Sep 20, 2020 

, as BDF says, the phrasing is simply too vague to know whether both incoming and outgoing (more obviously the case, admittedly) communications are covered. This is the other "sneakiness" involved: the vaguer the provisions, the less confident the employee can be about what they can "expect".

It's true that France has this "right to disconnect"... how far this works in practice I have no idea. But this text may relate to another Francophone country for all we know. Or it may be deliberately designed to comply superficially with the legal provisions in force in France.

09:03 Sep 20, 2020 

I agree with Eliza's points.

The reason I said this is "sneaky" is firstly because although on the face of it it appears to be affording some protection to the employee, in reality it is, as I read it, affording none from a legal standpoint, since ne réduit pas à néant is an almost meaningless provision. Expectative raisonnable would be something for the lawyers to chew on at least.

I also question this certainty you have that employees in practice can turn off devices outside working hours, regardless of who owns the device. They may have that right and many people may actually switch off notifications from an employer over the weekend. But the reality in the modern world, at least in an effectively unregulated model like the UK's, and I see this, is that people are often scared to "disconnect" and instead just live in "hope" (expectative) that their employer will only call them over the weekend very occasionally, if something very urgent comes up.

15:43 Sep 19, 2020 

@Daryo: "an employee using employer's equipment (mobile phone, computer ...) has NO "expectation of privacy" WHATSOEVER."

That's not a general truth. It depends on the law of the jurisdiction, as well as on any contractual agreements (including workplace policies) between the employee and employer.

Even in the US, whose law generally favors employers over employees, under federal law employers are not allowed to secretly monitor employee's phone calls, even if the calls are made from a work phone and at the workplace. Monitoring is only allowed under certain circumstances, most of which require a legitimate business reason for the monitoring.

"The reason for a particular type of workplace surveillance must be more important than an employee's expectation of privacy to be legally permissible.... Under federal law , employers are only allowed to monitor business telephone conversations; if they realize that the call is personal, they must hang up." https://www.workplacefairness.org/workplace-surveillance#4

According to this FR text, the employee WILL have some expectation of privacy.

15:00 Sep 18, 2020 

Regarding "out of hours calls" that would be under a different heading, and if they are not allowed under the local laws the protection afforded to the employee would be at a level ways higher than "ne réduit pas à néant ..." it would be a full right without any ifs nor buts and would also include calling employees on their personal / private mobiles.

Also for someone working from home, there is no reason to keep employer's equipment switched ON outside of agreed working hours, so that makes the case of "out of hour calls" irrelevant for this sentence.

Namely, the start / end of working time ***for an employee*** has nothing to do with actual work - what is required from the employee is to be "available for work" during the "working hours" - ergo outside of "agreed working hours" employer's equipment can be switched OFF - making the case of "out of hours use" of this equipment simply disappear / vanish in darkness ..

How would you use or misuse equipment that is switched OFF?

14:49 Sep 18, 2020 

in this text.

What you have to have in mind is what is implicitly there (or possibly explicitly somewhere else in the same document).

Namely, whatever is your personal opinion/expectation about it, an employee using employer's equipment (mobile phone, computer ...) has NO "expectation of privacy" WHATSOEVER.

The company's equipment was entrusted to the employee for work related use ONLY so by default the employer has a right of total access to whatever is done with the equipment. End of story / As simple as ...

To repeat myself: if you want privacy, use your own mobile / laptop / web connection ...

For doubting Thomases, plenty of samples / models of "Company policy regarding private use of company's phones / computers" to be easily found on the Web.

Plus a selection of juicy stories in the gutter press about porn found in work computers of all sorts of people including some ministers' aids, police etc ..


And not a single one of them even tried to claim "expectation of privacy" as excuse ...

...

13:29 Sep 18, 2020 

In a different context, to "dash hopes of privacy" would be a good translation. However, as this is posted as "Law/Patents - Human Resources / contrat de télétravail", it doesn't appear to be appropriate.

10:29 Sep 18, 2020 

If the emphasis is not on employee rights or expects

09:29 Sep 18, 2020 

Expectative doesn't seem to be a very common word. Where "hopes and expectations" are concerned, expectative seems closer to the first, with less optimism about outcomes than attente. Arguably this weakens further the force of the clause.

18:46 Sep 17, 2020 

surely the list of "courriel, Internet, téléphone" refers to the "échanges accomplis" not to the "outils" used for those échanges? Everyone I know (normally working in an office) who was asked to work from home was given a work laptop, if they didn't already have one, and many also have/were given a phone.
The ref. in the next paragraph to a "visite au domicile de l’employé ou par l’obtention d’informations relatives au domicile de l’employé" also implies that under a work-from-home initiative the employer may want to check the actual working space for health/safety compliance (or at least use that as an excuse).

17:23 Sep 17, 2020 

Yes. Looking forward to your answer!

16:49 Sep 17, 2020 

You're absolutely right about the sneakiness.

I don't think that there is ever a justification for a translator eliminating vagueness in a legal document, that's for the lawyers to do when drafting the source document. As a former manager of mine once told me when I corrected a mistake in a document written by a more senior manager: "you're not paid to make that fool look intelligent!"

16:28 Sep 17, 2020 

Nice points.

We may surmise that it is about use of the "work tools" (however defined) by the individual, but also about their right not to have their leisure time intruded on ("right to disconnect" as identified by Yvonne in my now squashed answer).

You're also right about the vagueness. That's why we can only really surmise about the scope of this provision. Specifically, échanges can work both ways: the employee is either the caller or the callee. But in a court of law I imagine this would be deemed to include both directions... so the employer can't snoop on private emails but equally can't ring the employee up at 2 am on a Sunday morning.

Given the legal context there might be a justification for erring on the side of eliminating the vagueness, given that a court would make an inclusive interpretation.

However... there are two sneaky aspects: "does not reduce to nil". So an infinitesimal degree of expectative might be deemed to satisfy the provision! And this phrase itself is qualified: "... concernant les échanges...". So use of these tools not involving échanges would NOT be covered! O how I'd like to know the company's name...

16:26 Sep 17, 2020 

However, I think we are indeed talking about hardware here: the things you cite are more likely to be the 'échanges' rather than the 'outils' referred to.
There is a lot of discussion at the moment about this issue, see the acronyms here:
BYOD is Bring Your Own Device; CYOD is Choose Your Own Device;
COPE is Company Owned/Personally Enabled; and COBO is Company Owned/Business Only.
I think in this instance they are referring to COPE.

15:59 Sep 17, 2020 

In the list "courriel, Internet, téléphone", only "téléphone" is equipment. The French "outils", just like "tools" in English is widely used for software tools (or even for procedures). Yesterday's Libération had an article about the problems caused by university lecturers having to record and transmit their lectures using their personal computers and peripherals, thanks to the French government failing to adequately or efficiently fund the extra HE and FE costs arising from COVID. It's a fair bet that this sort of problem also affects employees of private and public companies.

Why should the translation of "expectative de vie privée" be any less vague than the source?

15:30 Sep 17, 2020 

I believe it far more likely that the company has supplied devices "outils de travail/ses outils" rather than just software. I also believe most companies supply work laptops and phones for home working as company devices can also have tracking installed to monitor what the employee is up to https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/2/21195584/coronavirus-rem... Note that if the employee uses a company laptop or phone for their personal use it could be deemed a benefit-in-kind for tax purposes. See here also https://www.flexjobs.com/employer-blog/office-equipment-give... "privacy" or "private life" on its own is far too vague

15:10 Sep 17, 2020 

Some people have agreed with Daryo's comment, in his answer, that "this is about employee's personal use of equipment supplied by the employer for work purposes".

Firstly, "outils de travail" can cover hardware and/or software, access and accounts; so the term "equipment" is probably best avoided here, because the email and Internet tools provided might be provided on the employee's own, personal computer(s) and mobile phone.

Secondly, "son expectative de vie privée concernant les échanges accomplis à l’aide de ses outils" is actually rather vague, and it could cover personal use of the tools in question, but could also cover the timing and intrusiveness of these "échanges". So, the employee should be entitled to expect that the phone provided for work purposes will not ring or messages pop up on their phone or PC outside working hours. Also, their private communications should remain completely private and their employer should not have access to personal communications equipment that is used to access the tools concerned.