Clocking devices, geolocation: what French law actually requires

A site manager is torn between installing a clocking device at the depot entrance and rolling out an app with geolocation on the team's phones. In both cases, the same worry sits behind the choice: that the law requires one or the other, and that skipping it puts the business at fault.

The short answer: French law requires neither a clocking device nor geolocation. It requires a count of working hours, and only in certain cases. The rest explains what it actually demands, and what stays a management choice.

What the law requires, and what it doesn't#

The text behind the obligation is short. When employees in the same team no longer work the same collective schedule, the employer must produce the documents needed to count working time, accrued compensatory rest and its actual use, for each employee concerned.

Two consequences follow directly from that text:

• The obligation doesn't apply to everyone. A team that strictly follows the same posted and respected collective schedule doesn't need an individual count. As soon as schedules start to vary from one person to the next, an individual count becomes necessary.
• No tool is named. The text speaks of "necessary documents," not a clocking device, biometric reader or geolocation. A written log, signed at the end of the week, meets the same obligation as an electronic badge, provided it genuinely exists and can be produced.

What matters for the employer, in an overtime dispute, is therefore not the technology chosen but whether the record exists. A missing record counts against them; a record kept in a notebook does not.

Geolocation: only when nothing else works#

Geolocation is the most tightly regulated of the three means, because it collects more than hours. The CNIL sets precise limits for any use tied to working time:

• It may only be used to track working time as a secondary purpose, when that tracking cannot be done by any other means. If a declarative log already covers it, geolocation cannot replace it for that same use.
• It can never be used to monitor an employee continuously, nor to track their movements outside working hours.
• The employee must be able to switch off location tracking outside working hours, and must be informed of the device, its purpose, and how long the data is kept.
• Retention is limited: two months in general, one year to optimise routes or prove a visit took place, five years when the declared use is tracking working time.

An operations manager who turns on geolocation "to be sure the guys are actually on site" breaks the rules on day one: that is neither a secondary use tied to tracking hours, nor a purpose disclosed to employees.

The grid: what each means requires, and what it costs#

Three common means, for the same count:

The most regulated means isn't necessarily the most useful one. For most project-based businesses, a simple declarative log, filled in from the phone at the end of each task, meets the legal obligation without the acceptance cost of a surveillance device.

What changes with an application built for the company#

An application built around how the team actually works treats the count as a declaration, not a control:

• Each person logs their hours from their phone, at the end of the task or the day, with no badge or device to install.
• The count complies with article L3171-2 as soon as one schedule differs from another: it exists, it's dated, it can be produced.
• The export goes to the payroll software or the accountant, in the expected format, with nothing retyped. We detail the mechanics in the article on tracking time on site.
• No continuous tracking: the application knows where an entry was logged at the moment it was logged, not where the person is between two tasks.

This module is detailed on the hours and payroll preparation page. The payroll data that often comes with this count is covered in the article on late payroll data.

What not to do#

Installing a geolocation device without telling the teams, on the assumption that "they won't read the memo anyway." This is one of the rare cases where missing information alone is enough to make the device unlawful.

Presenting geolocation as a tool for tracking hours when its real use is knowing where the vehicles are. Both purposes exist, but they must be disclosed and justified separately.

Clocking devices and geolocation: the key takeaways#

The law requires a count of working hours as soon as schedules differ from one employee to the next, not a specific tool. Geolocation, for its part, stays reserved for cases where nothing else allows that tracking, with full disclosure and limited retention.

Before installing a device, ask the question the other way round: which document proves the count, not which tool looks the most impressive. The simplest means often meets the obligation, at a far lower acceptance cost.