Dismissed on camera footage: when that evidence is void
Last updated 2026-09-01 · Reviewed by Jaime Piñeira Pardo, registered with the ICAM bar, no. 138826
The short answer
An employer may have cameras, but it must have informed the workforce beforehand in an express, clear and concise manner. If it did not, the recording was obtained in breach of a fundamental right and has no effect. Without it, the facts in the letter go unproven. The action lapses twenty working days after the dismissal.
You are handed a disciplinary dismissal letter for taking stock from the warehouse. Attached is a still from a camera you did not know was there, installed months ago in the corridor leading to the changing room. Nobody ever informed you in writing that there was video surveillance, there is no sign at the door and the works council received no communication. The company says the recording speaks for itself and that if you refuse to sign the letter you must take the consequences.
The case, in five lines
- What is brought
- A claim challenging the dismissal, expressly asking that the recording be given no effect because it was obtained in breach of the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection.
- Before which court
- The Social section of the Tribunal de Instancia (the first-instance court), after conciliation before the competent public mediation, arbitration and conciliation body.
- Deadline
- Twenty days, working days and a lapse period for all purposes, from the day the dismissal took place. The period is interrupted by lodging the request for conciliation.
- Who can bring it
- The dismissed worker. The breach is raised in relation to the evidence supporting the letter, regardless of whether the camera also affected other colleagues.
- Financial risk
- If prior information is shown to have existed, the recording comes into the hearing and the facts are proved. And even if it is excluded, the employer may still support the dismissal with evidence other than the video.
The camera may exist; what cannot be missing is the prior information
Article 89 of Organic Law 3/2018 allows employers to process images obtained by cameras in exercising the monitoring powers provided for in Article 20.3 of the Workers' Statute, provided those powers are exercised within their legal framework and with its inherent limits. The installation is not prohibited, and arguing that is losing the case before it starts.
The sentence that decides the matter is this: employers must inform workers and, where applicable, their representatives beforehand, in an express, clear and concise manner, about the measure. Four requirements in one line. Prior, express, clear and concise. A generic notice buried in an annex signed years ago hardly meets all four.
That duty rests on Article 20 of the Statute itself, which allows the employer to adopt such monitoring and control measures as it considers appropriate to verify compliance with employment obligations, but with due regard in their adoption and application to the worker's dignity. Monitoring is lawful; monitoring in secret in order to dismiss afterwards is not.
A flagrant unlawful act lowers the duty, it does not remove it
Article 89 itself opens a measured exception: where the flagrant commission of an unlawful act by workers has been captured, the duty to inform is treated as satisfied provided there was at least the informative device under Article 22.4 of that organic law. In other words, individual information is reduced to the sign, but the sign must have been up.
That is why the case turns on two concrete questions rather than an abstract debate. First: was there a visible sign, and since when? Second: is what was captured genuinely the flagrant commission of an unlawful act, or is it conduct the company reinterpreted afterwards while reviewing weeks of footage? With no sign, the exception does not open even for flagrant acts.
There are also two limits admitting no exception. In no case may sound recording or video surveillance systems be installed in places intended for workers' rest or leisure, such as changing rooms, toilets, canteens and the like. And sound recording is permitted only where risks to the safety of premises, property and persons are significant, with proportionality and minimum intervention.
Article 11.1 of the LOPJ is what turns the defect into a win
Establishing that prior information was missing achieves little unless it is connected to the rule that expels the evidence from the hearing. That rule is Article 11 of the Organic Law on the Judiciary: in all types of proceedings the rules of good faith shall be observed, and evidence obtained, directly or indirectly, in breach of fundamental rights or freedoms shall have no effect.
The two words doing the most work are directly or indirectly. It is not only the video file that falls. What was built on it falls too: the internal report describing it, the charge sheet summarising it and, depending on the case, the evidence of the security manager who knows only what he saw on screen. The contamination spreads backwards.
That is why the challenge is raised expressly and with documents, not as a passing remark. The fundamental right affected is identified, the absence of prior information is proved through the documents the company should have and does not, and it is requested that the recording and everything derived from it be given no effect in the proceedings.
Without the video, the letter stands alone before Article 108
Article 108 of Law 36/2011 requires the dismissal to be classified as fair, unfair or void. And it sets the test precisely: it is fair where the breach alleged by the employer in the letter of communication is established. Otherwise, or where the formal requirements of Article 55.1 of the Statute were not met, it is classified as unfair.
That is the nerve of the strategy. If the only support for the alleged breach is the recording, and the recording has no effect, the breach is not established and the classification falls on the side of unfairness. You do not have to prove you did nothing: it is enough that the employer is left without the evidence it intended to prove it with.
The same article provides for nullity in the situations set out in Article 55.5 of the Statute and adds that, if it is established that the motive for the dismissal was one of those causes, the judge shall rule on it regardless of the form the dismissal took. That is the door that opens when covert monitoring was aimed at one particular person for one particular reason.
Twenty working days, and they are a lapse period for all purposes
Article 59 of the Workers' Statute is blunt: the action against dismissal lapses twenty days after the day on which it took place. The days are working days and the period is a lapse period for all purposes. It is not a limitation period, it is not interrupted by internal complaints and it is not recovered with reasonable explanations.
The same paragraph indicates the only interruption provided for: lodging the request for conciliation before the competent public mediation, arbitration and conciliation body. That step stops the clock, and that is why it is lodged early rather than on day nineteen, especially where the case will be built around documents the company holds and you do not yet.
Time should be measured with the strategy in hand. Evidence of the absence of prior information is usually in the company's hands: the contract and its annexes, communications to the representatives, the camera installation delivery notes. Preparing the request for those documents is part of the work of those twenty days, not of the week before the hearing.
How we run the case, step by step
- 1
Isolate which facts depend on the video
The letter is read line by line, separating what the company can only prove with the recording from what it could prove with witnesses or documents. That split decides whether attacking the evidence resolves the case or merely improves it.
- 2
Look for the prior information that should exist
We review the contract, annexes, circulars, communications to the works council and the signage at the site. The law requires prior information in an express, clear and concise manner, and that requirement leaves a documentary trail or it was not met.
- 3
Lodge the conciliation and stop the clock
The request for conciliation before the competent public body interrupts the twenty working day period. It is lodged early, without admitting the recorded facts in it and without arguing the classification before the documents are in hand.
- 4
Sue expressly seeking exclusion of the evidence
The claim challenges the dismissal and identifies the fundamental right breached, asking that the recording and everything derived from it be given no effect. It also requests production of the documents that would prove the prior information.
- 5
Work the hearing on the origin of the file
At the hearing we attack the chain of custody of the video, who extracted it, when, under whose authority and how much footage was reviewed, and we question the witnesses on what they know independently of the screen.
- 6
Enforce the classification obtained
Once judgment is handed down we enforce the consequence attached to the classification of the dismissal, and keep the ruling on the unlawfulness of the monitoring in case it opens an additional claim over the data processing.
The evidence that decides the case
- The contract and all its annexes, to check whether they contain express, clear and concise information about the video surveillance.
- The communications addressed to the workers' representatives and the works council minutes where the measure ought to appear.
- Dated photographs of the informative device, its content and its position, or of its absence.
- The site plan showing the position of each camera in relation to changing rooms, toilets and canteens.
- The video file produced, with its metadata, the date of extraction and who accessed it.
- The internal emails revealing how much footage was reviewed and on what suspicion the review began.
What closes the door
- Letting the twenty working days pass. It is a lapse period for all purposes and only the request for conciliation before the competent public body interrupts it.
- Arguing the facts on the video before arguing whether it is admissible. Admitting them in conciliation drains all meaning from the exclusion you were going to seek.
- Raising the breach in passing. Exclusion is sought expressly, identifying the fundamental right and extending it to everything derived from the recording.
- Circulating the video or recording on your own account at the workplace. It opens a new front and weakens the very reproach being aimed at the employer.
- Giving the case up because the events happened. The classification depends on the alleged breach being established, not on what actually took place.
The law that applies
- Art. 89 LOPDGDD. It allows the employer to process camera images for the monitoring powers in Article 20.3 of the Workers' Statute within their legal framework, requiring it to inform workers and, where applicable, their representatives beforehand in an express, clear and concise manner. Where the flagrant commission of an unlawful act is captured, the duty to inform is treated as met by the informative device under Article 22.4. It prohibits without exception cameras and sound recording in changing rooms, toilets, canteens and the like, and allows sound recording only where risks to safety are significant, with proportionality and minimum intervention. BOE-A-2018-16673
- Art. 11 LOPJ. It requires the rules of good faith to be observed in all types of proceedings and provides that evidence obtained, directly or indirectly, in breach of fundamental rights or freedoms shall have no effect. It also requires reasoned rejection of applications, interlocutory motions and objections made in manifest abuse of rights or amounting to fraud on the law or on procedure, and requires the claims made always to be decided, dismissing them on formal grounds only where the defect cannot be cured or is not cured. BOE-A-1985-12666
- Art. 108 LRJS. It requires the judge to classify the dismissal as fair, unfair or void. It is fair where the breach alleged by the employer in the letter of communication is established; otherwise, or where the formal requirements of Article 55.1 of the Statute were not met, it is unfair. It provides for nullity in the situations set out in Article 55.5 of the Statute and requires that, if the motive for the dismissal is shown to have been one of those causes, the judge rule on it regardless of the form of the dismissal. BOE-A-2011-15936
- Art. 59 ET. It provides that actions arising from the employment contract with no special period are time barred one year after its termination, and that the action against dismissal or against the termination of temporary contracts lapses twenty days after the day it occurred, those being working days and a lapse period for all purposes. That period is interrupted by lodging the request for conciliation before the competent public mediation, arbitration and conciliation body, and the same rule applies to actions against geographical mobility and substantial changes to working conditions. BOE-A-2015-11430
- Art. 20 ET. It places the performance of work under the employer's direction and subjects both parties to the requirements of good faith. It empowers the employer to adopt such monitoring and control measures as it considers appropriate to verify the worker's compliance with employment obligations and duties, with due regard in their adoption and application to the worker's dignity and taking into account the actual capacity of workers with disabilities. BOE-A-2015-11430
- Art. 90 LOPDGDD. It allows the employer to process data obtained through geolocation systems for the monitoring powers in Article 20.3 of the Workers' Statute within their legal framework, but requires it to inform workers and, where applicable, their representatives beforehand, in an express, clear and unequivocal manner, of the existence and characteristics of those devices, and of the possible exercise of the rights of access, rectification, restriction of processing and erasure. BOE-A-2018-16673
Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).
Frequently asked questions
Is a video surveillance sign on its own enough?
Only in one situation. The general rule is that the employer must inform workers and their representatives beforehand, in an express, clear and concise manner. The sign replaces that information only where the flagrant commission of an unlawful act has been captured, and even then at least that informative device had to exist at the time of capture.
What if the events shown in the video really did happen?
The classification of the dismissal does not depend on what happened, but on whether the breach alleged by the employer in the letter is established. If that breach can only be proved with a recording obtained in breach of fundamental rights, that evidence has no effect, directly or indirectly, and the breach goes unproven. That leads to unfairness even if the events did occur.
Can the company have cameras in the changing room or canteen?
No, and here no balancing is possible. The law says that in no case may sound recording or video surveillance systems be installed in places intended for workers' rest or leisure, such as changing rooms, toilets, canteens and the like. If the camera supporting your dismissal is in one of those spaces, or frames them, the defect cannot be cured.
Does the same apply if I was tracked by the vehicle GPS?
The scheme is the same, with an even stricter information requirement. The employer may process geolocation data for the monitoring powers in Article 20.3 of the Statute, but must inform beforehand, in an express, clear and unequivocal manner, of the existence and characteristics of those devices, and also of the possible exercise of the rights of access, rectification, restriction and erasure.
How long do I have from being handed the letter?
Twenty days, working days and a lapse period for all purposes, from the day the dismissal took place. It is not a limitation period and it is not interrupted by internal letters or by conversations with the company. The only interruption provided for is lodging the request for conciliation before the competent public mediation, arbitration and conciliation body.
This guide explains how the action works in general. It does not replace the study of your own case: deadlines depend on when things happened and on what you have done since.