GPS tracking of company vehicles in Switzerland: what OLT 3 and the revised FADP allow

In Switzerland, an employer may track a company vehicle by GPS only for a legitimate operational purpose (safety, dispatching, proof of billed services), in a proportionate way and after informing the employees. Any system whose purpose is to monitor employees' behaviour is prohibited by Article 26 of Ordinance 3 to the Labour Act (ArGV 3 / OLT 3).

If you come from a GDPR country, note the difference: in Switzerland the decisive limit is not only data protection law. It is a labour law ban on behaviour monitoring, enforced by the cantonal labour inspectorates, on top of the revised Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP, nDSG / nLPD).

Most fleets do not need to know where their cars are. They need to know how far they drive, what they consume and when they are due for service. That is how Voltaback's box-free telematics works: mileage, consumption and alerts come straight from the connected car, and the company never receives its drivers' location.

The essentials in 30 seconds

• Prohibited: systems intended to monitor behaviour at work (Art. 26 para. 1 OLT 3), permanent real-time tracking, tracking of private trips.
• Allowed: systems needed for other reasons (safety, planning, proof of service), designed not to affect health or freedom of movement, proportionate and announced in advance.
• Before installing: written purpose, information to staff, consultation (Art. 48 Labour Act), data protection impact assessment if high risk (Art. 22 revFADP), defined retention period.
• Mixed-use company car: the driver must be able to switch tracking off outside work. Mileage is enough to detect misuse.

The legal basis: three sets of rules at once

Tracking an employee in Switzerland touches public labour law, the law of the employment contract and data protection law. All three apply together.

Art. 26 OLT 3: no monitoring of behaviour

Article 26 OLT 3 sets two rules. First, monitoring or control systems intended to monitor the behaviour of workers at their workplace may not be used. Second, where such systems are needed for other reasons, they must be designed and arranged so that they do not affect the workers' health or freedom of movement.

The test is therefore not the technology but the purpose. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) comments on the provision in its guidance on Ordinance 3. Source: OLT 3, Art. 26; SECO, guidance on ArGV 3.

Art. 328b CO: only data the job requires

The employer may process data about an employee only insofar as it concerns their suitability for the job or is necessary to perform the employment contract (Art. 328b of the Code of Obligations, OR / CO). The car's position on a Saturday night meets neither condition. Source: Code of Obligations, Art. 328b.

The revised FADP: proportionality, transparency, privacy by design

The revised Federal Act on Data Protection, in force since 1 September 2023, adds three duties that matter for any fleet:

• Purpose limitation and proportionality (Art. 6): only data needed for the stated purpose, destroyed or anonymised once it is no longer needed.
• Data protection by design and by default (Art. 7): the system must be configured to keep processing to the minimum necessary.
• Duty to inform (Art. 19): the employee is told about the collection, its purpose, the recipients and the controller's identity.

The supervisory authority is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC, EDÖB / PFPDT). Source: revFADP.

What the Federal Supreme Court decided: BGE 130 II 425

The leading case dates from 2004. A Geneva company that sells and services fire extinguishers had fitted GPS to the vehicles of about 15 service technicians, for roughly CHF 40'000.–. The staff had been informed. After an employee complained, the cantonal labour inspectorate ordered the system removed, and the cantonal administrative court agreed.

The Federal Supreme Court clarified how Art. 26 OLT 3 is read:

• A system is prohibited if it aims solely or mainly at monitoring behaviour. A system that also serves other purposes is not banned as such.
• It must pass the proportionality test: suitable, necessary (no less intrusive means) and reasonable given the intrusion.
• For theft protection, a less intrusive system would have done. For urgent dispatching, the company had given no concrete examples.
• Intensity matters: reviewing location data after the fact is far less intrusive than permanent real-time tracking, which can cause stress.

The court sent the case back to the cantonal court to establish what the system could actually do and to weigh the interests again. The lesson: GPS is not banned in principle, but the bar is high. Source: BGE 130 II 425.

What you want to know, and the least intrusive way to find out

The proportionality test applied to the questions fleet managers actually ask:

For most company car fleets in Zurich, Zug, Basel or the Lake Geneva region, the useful figure is mileage, not location. KPIs and alert thresholds are covered in our guide to fleet mileage tracking, and better driving without a tracker in our guide to fleet eco-driving.

Company cars with private use: the red line

The most sensitive case is the car the employee may also use in the evening, at weekends and on holiday. That is the norm for a company car taxed with the private share of 0.9 % per month on the salary certificate (Lohnausweis / certificat de salaire).

Three rules follow from Art. 328b CO, Art. 26 OLT 3 and case law:

1. No tracking of private trips. Locating an employee outside working time seriously intrudes on their private life. A tracker that records everything, business and private trips alike, is very hard to justify.
2. A privacy switch. The employee must be able to turn tracking on and off. In 2019 the Zurich Labour Court held unlawful a GPS system that also recorded private trips and could not be switched off. Source: arbeitsrecht-aktuell.ch.
3. Mileage is enough to detect misuse. If a car must not be driven during holidays, the kilometres driven in that period prove it without revealing the route.

For a mixed-use car, the odometer does the tracker's job. How private kilometres are recorded for the salary certificate is explained in our guide to the company car logbook in Switzerland.

Before installing a GPS tracker: five steps

These steps do not decide whether tracking is useful. They are what must be done before go-live, whatever the purpose.

1. Write down the purpose and the proportionality test

Describe the precise purpose, show that no less intrusive means achieves it and set the hours when the system is active. SECO recommends a written concept describing how the system works, its type and when it records. Add the processing to your record of processing activities (Art. 12 revFADP) if your company is required to keep one.

2. Inform every employee

Inform staff in writing before go-live, in the staff regulations, a vehicle policy or a contract addendum. Cover at least:

• the controller;
• the purpose and the data collected;
• the recipients;
• the retention period;
• how to switch tracking off outside work;
• the right of access (Art. 25 revFADP).

3. Consult the workforce

Art. 26 OLT 3 is a health protection rule, and Article 48 of the Labour Act (ArG / LTr) gives workers or their representatives the right to be informed and consulted on health protection. Consult the staff committee before deciding, or the affected employees directly if there is none. Source: Labour Act, Art. 48.

4. Check whether an impact assessment is required

Article 22 revFADP requires a data protection impact assessment when processing may lead to a high risk to the person's personality or fundamental rights. Continuous tracking of a whole fleet, especially cars with private use, very likely qualifies. For a one-off set-up (last position after a theft), at least document your reasoning.

5. Set a short retention period

The revFADP sets no number of days: data must be destroyed or anonymised as soon as it is no longer needed for the purpose (Art. 6 para. 4). Check the provider's default settings. A trip history kept for a full year is hard to justify for route planning alone.

Tip: before any tracker project, list the decisions you will take with the data. If none needs the car's exact position, you do not need tracking.

Can GPS data support a dismissal or a warning?

Yes, if the system is lawful and used for the purpose announced to staff. Otherwise the evidence becomes weak.

In civil proceedings, unlawfully obtained evidence is taken into account only if the interest in finding the truth prevails (Art. 152 para. 2 of the Civil Procedure Code, ZPO / CPC). The court weighs, case by case, the intrusion into private life against the employer's interest. Source: Civil Procedure Code, Art. 152.

In the 2019 Zurich case, the employer used GPS data to try to prove about 133 hours of unworked time. The court found the system unlawful because it also recorded private trips and could not be turned off.

For prohibited use of a car, the mileage record remains the simplest and least disputable evidence.

What does the employer risk?

The risk is threefold: unusable evidence, action by the authorities and, in some cases, a criminal fine.

• Cantonal labour inspectorate: it can order the removal of a system that breaches Art. 26 OLT 3, as in the Geneva case behind BGE 130 II 425.
• FDPIC: it can open an investigation and order that processing be adapted, suspended or stopped (Arts. 49 and 51 revFADP).
• revFADP fines: up to CHF 250'000.– for intentional breaches, notably of the duty to inform or the duty of care (Arts. 60 and 61). Unlike the GDPR, these fines target the responsible individuals, not the company. The company itself can be fined up to CHF 50'000.– where tracing the responsible person would be disproportionate (Art. 64). Source: PwC Switzerland, revDSG; revFADP.
• Labour court: an employee can claim an infringement of personality rights (Art. 328 CO) and challenge a dismissal based on unlawful data.

Box, app or connected car: what the employer sees

There are four ways to follow a company car. They differ in cost and legal risk because they send different data to the employer.

The first three are tracking tools and fall under every rule above. The fourth can avoid them if the platform does not pass the position to the employer.

Example: a Zug-based trading company with 40 mixed-use company cars driven by sales staff living in Zurich, Lucerne and Basel. It wants monthly mileage, consumption and service dates. None of these needs justifies continuous tracking, a heavy impact assessment or managing a privacy switch in 40 cars.

Tracking mileage, energy and maintenance without locating anyone

What finance, HR and the fleet manager need fits in a few data points: mileage, energy used, cost, service due dates and CO2. None requires the employer to see where employees are.

This is the "data protection by design" architecture that Art. 7 revFADP asks for: the location never leaves the driver's side. For IT, the control point is simple: check which data actually enters the company's systems. See our page for IT managers.

Service and battery alerts are covered in our guide to fleet maintenance alerts.

Tip: show the staff committee a tool that sends no position to the employer. The conversation shifts from surveillance to fleet management.

What Voltaback changes in practice

Voltaback gives fleet managers, HR and finance the data they need without bringing location data into the company.

• Box-free telematics: mileage, consumption, eco-driving, alerts and maintenance straight from the connected car, for more than 48 car brands, electric and combustion. No position goes to the employer.
• Home charging reimbursed at real cost: measured kWh times the employee's actual electricity tariff. Voltaback relies on the home's MID-certified meter, not on a standalone cable meter. The measurement was audited by an independent third party, with a relative error of 1.22 %.
• Protected data: 100 % software, ISO 27001 certified since 2 December 2025, compliant with the revFADP.

More than 200 client companies, including major European groups, run their fleets with Voltaback.

Next step

Before signing a tracker subscription, check what you really need to measure. In 30 minutes we show you how to get your fleet's mileage, consumption, maintenance and CO2 with no hardware and without sending a single position to the company: book a telematics demo.