Due to the Covid-19 Coronavirus epidemic, which is on the agenda of the whole world, many companies switched to remote working. However, some companies could not start working remotely, from homes due to lack of technical infrastructure, while some companies switched to remote working in means of working from home without being aware of the systems that they had to set up in their technical systems and without taking the necessary precautions.

Among the guideline of frequently asked questions published by Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK) and ICO on the subject, the question "What kind of security measures should be taken to work from home?" has been answered stating that data protection is not a barrier to working from home and that usual security measures should be applied during working remotely, as well.

In the Guidelines for Safe ‘Remote Work’ published by the National Cyber Incidents Response Center within the scope of corona virus outbreak measures, the importance of the measures are described as follows: Defining a time-out for maximum connection time on systems, temporary establishment of the rules defined during remote work, "source IP" restrictions for remote connections where possible, multi-factor authentication and time-based authorization measures for access, ensure that remote access is not permitted for access to any critical systems that should not be defined according to the risk assessment.

So, what aspects should companies take into consideration when working remotely?

The Law on the Amendment of Some Laws No. 7226, which contains amendments in many laws, including articles on the struggle with Covid-19 outbreak, has entered into force by being published in the Official Gazette dated 26.03.2020 and with repeated number 31080.

Law No. 7226 includes accelerating access to individuals in disasters and emergencies, meeting energy expenditures from the budget, postponing financial liabilities and declarations, compensatory work to be done by the employer, short employment, bounced cheque, unprotested bill, those with loan depts or credit card depts and many more regulations.

You can Find the Regulations in the Law Below

Some amendments were made in the Labor Law (Article 64) with the Law No. 7226 Amending Some Laws published in the Official Gazette 31080 (1st Repeat) dated 26.03.2020.

The statements before the update are as below:

Compensatory Work

ARTICLE 64 – In cases where time worked has been considerably lower than the normal working time or where operations are stopped entirely for reasons of suspending work due to force majeure or on the days before or after the national and public holidays or where the employee is granted time off upon his request, the employer may call upon compensatory work within two months in order to compensate for the time lost due to unworked periods. Such work shall not be considered overtime work or work at extra hours.

Compensatory work shall not exceed three hours daily, and must not exceed the maximum daily working time in any case.

Compensatory work shall not be carried out on holidays.

With the Law no:7226 Article 43, the below update was announced:

With the Communiqué Regarding Amendment of the General Communiqué on Recycling Contribution Share Declaration (No:1), which was published on the 05/02/2020 dated Official Gazette no: 31030, General Communiqué on Recycling Contribution Share Declaration published on 4/4/2019 dated Official Gazette no: 30375 have been regulated regarding the application initiated for the products other than plastic bags.

The General Communiqué on Recycling Contribution Share Declaration published on 4/4/2019 dated Official Gazette no: 30375 has been amended with the Communiqué Regarding Amendment of the General Communiqué on Recycling Contribution Share Declaration (No:3), which was published on the 22/03/2020 dated Official Gazette no: 31076. Accordingly, declaration and payment periods of Recycling Contribution Share have been revised.

With the latest update;