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?

Due to the Covid-19 virus, necessary precautions have been taken by the organizations; within the scope of these precautions, the possibility of unauthorized access to personal data has emerged, including health data of employees or third parties. Organizations should be very careful to avoid possible violations which might directly impact the rights and freedoms of persons when taking relevant preventive measures. In this process, organizations can follow the methods in the precautions to be taken, which are elaborated as follows:

1. Remote Working

In order to ensure business continuity, an organization may go for the option of remote working in this period. In such case, if organizations do not already have sufficient technical infrastructure, certain difficulties may be faced. For example, within the scope of this measure taken to protect public health, the personal phone numbers of people who do not use the company phone for communication between people, other employees, business partners, customers, suppliers etc., can be shared with third parties. While this transfer/sharing of information has a legitimate aim, it is well known that it must be based on the explicit consent of individuals. In cases where people do not give explicit consent or withdraw their explicit consent, providing a company line to the person would be an appropriate solution.

Pursuant to the following provision of the Article 15 of the Law "The Board shall carry out the necessary examination on the matters falling within its task upon complaint or ex officio where it has learnt about the alleged infringement.", complaints reported to the Authority are reviewed by the Board.

Complaints were used to be reported to the Authority via paper mail; as per the announcement of the Board dated 09.01.2020, the complaints can now be reported electronically via online module.

The data subject will be able to report complaint in person via complaint module by logging into the e-government system and the complaints to be reported through the attorney will continue as it is.

As it is known, in accordance with the Board Decision dated 24.01.2019 and numbered 2019/10, in case of a personal data breach, a notification should be made to the Authority by using Data Breach Notification Form as per the Board Decision.

According to the announcement made by the Authority on 06.01.2020, Personal Data Breach Notification that previously expected to be sent by paper mail can now be made on the internet at ihlalbildirim.kvkk.gov.tr.