Lima, July 2 (teleSUR-RHC)-- A group of Congress representatives from left coalition Broad Front – Popular Action led by Yohny Lescano issued a press release on Wednesday denouncing businesses that track their employees with GPS systems.

They labeled it as a form of spying on employees and an unconstitutional method of harassment at work. They also denounced the inaction from the Ministry of Work to tackle the issue. Lescano explained that “it is an anti-labor practice...that goes against the privacy and dignity of a person.” He also stated that it “goes against the accords of the International Labor Organization.”

Spanish telecommunications giant Telefónica is already offering services to companies to use GPS-like features to track their employees.

The first employees to bring a complaint to the Ministry of Employment were labor union workers from the Chilean Falabella bank. One of them, Juan Huajardo confirms that the company has forced them to carry cellphones with GPS features in order to track down their exact location in real time. Huajardo said Falabella was “able find us at our homes and wherever we were. They were able to find our location and we did not know that the device had a GPS. Aside from that, when they gave us the devices they attached a letter saying that if we fiddle with the device we could be sanctioned.” However, Huajardo’s complaint was archived by the Ministry of Work leaving the door open to businesses to continue using such practices with regards to their employees.

Without government restrictions, Telefónica has launched a promotional video for their Employee GPS tracking service. It is called “Here I am”. The promotional video for the service provides a picture of what could be the norm in the near future in Peru stating it will allow employers to “control” their workers, providing alerts for management if employees leave determined areas, and tracking workers even when they are using non-smart phones.