This is not legal advice
This guide is informational and reflects general principles that repeat across the region. Laws change, and every employment situation is different. Before implementing a monitoring policy, consult a labor lawyer in your country.
Why this matters
You handed your team work equipment. That equipment reaches customer data, internal systems, and company accounts — and if something goes wrong on it, the responsibility falls on you. Monitoring it isn't optional if you take information security seriously. The right question isn't whether to monitor, but how to do it in a way that's legal, ethical, and that your team experiences as protection, not surveillance.
The three principles that repeat across the region
Even though every LatAm country has its own data-protection law, regulators and courts converge on three conditions. If your monitoring policy meets all three, you're standing on solid ground:
- Transparency: your team knows the equipment is monitored, what's monitored, and why. Hidden monitoring is what loses lawsuits.
- Proportionality: you monitor what's necessary for the stated purpose, nothing more. Checking that antivirus is active is proportionate; reading personal conversations is not.
- Legitimate purpose: information security, asset protection, technical support, and regulatory compliance are accepted purposes. "Seeing what people do" is not a purpose.
What Argos does (and doesn't do)
Argos is designed so that proportionality is built into the tool, not just the written policy:
It does
- Presence and status: online, active, or idle (AFK), and since when.
- Machine security: whether antivirus, firewall, and disk encryption are active.
- Aggregate application usage time (which program was in focus and for how long), not the content inside them.
- Point-in-time screenshots, only if you enabled that policy for a group of machines, with limited retention and access.
- An audit log of who viewed which machine's screen, and when.
It doesn't
- It doesn't log what's typed: there is no text keylogging.
- It doesn't read personal emails, chats, or messages.
- It doesn't capture passwords or form data.
- It doesn't monitor personal devices that aren't company-owned.
- It doesn't give screenshot access to just anyone at the company — only to operators with the corresponding role (RBAC).
How to notify your team
The notice doesn't have to be an intimidating document. You need three things, and you can put them in the employment contract, the internal policy, or a welcome email or banner:
- What's monitored, in plain language: presence, machine security, and application usage — never personal content.
- Why: protecting company and customer information, delivering faster technical support, meeting security standards.
- Who can see what: which operators have access, and that there's an audit log of that access.
Checklist before turning on monitoring
- You wrote (or updated) your internal policy on work-equipment use.
- Your team signed or acknowledged that policy, or at least received it in writing.
- You configured Argos roles (RBAC) so each operator only sees what applies to them.
- You enabled two-factor authentication (TOTP) for higher-privilege operator accounts.
- If you're using screenshots, you defined the machine group, the retention period, and who can view them.
- You checked your country's legal framework in the table below, or with your labor lawyer.
Legal framework by country: the quick map
This map is a starting point, not a legal ruling. The fine detail — what can be captured, with what retention, with what access — depends on your jurisdiction.
| Country | Main framework | The essentials |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico | LFPDPPP + data authority guidance | Employee privacy notice; company equipment can be monitored with prior notification. |
| Brazil | LGPD + labor case law (TST) | "Legitimate interest" legal basis for corporate equipment; company email and devices are monitorable with a clear policy. |
| Colombia | Law 1581 of 2012 | Authorization and duty to inform; internal data-processing policies are mandatory. |
| Argentina | Law 25,326 + Labor Contract Law | Controls must safeguard worker dignity and be known to the worker. |
| Chile | Law 21,719 (new data law) + Labor Directorate rulings | Monitoring must be general, not persecutory, and disclosed in internal regulations. |
| Peru | Law 29733 | Prior notice and proportionality; consent is reinforced by a signed policy. |
| Dominican Rep. | Law 172-13 | Quality and purpose principles; informing in writing is the safe practice. |
Lines you shouldn't cross (in any country)
- Monitoring personal devices (BYOD) as if they were company-owned.
- Capturing clearly personal content: online banking, private messages, sessions outside the agreed work hours.
- Hiding the monitoring: beyond the legal risk, it destroys your team's trust.
- Giving screenshot access to anyone at the company, with no role controls.
What this looks like in the Argos console
Meeting these principles isn't just a document in a drawer: it's concrete configuration.
- Capture policies configurable per machine group.
- RBAC: each operator only sees the machines and sections assigned to them.
- Audit log of screen access and remote sessions.
- Monitoring geared toward security and presence, not content surveillance.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need each employee's explicit consent?
It depends on the country and your legal basis. In most of LatAm, a clear notice plus an internal policy known to the team is enough (the employer's legitimate interest), but some frameworks — like Mexico's — place more weight on a formal privacy notice. Confirm this with your legal counsel.
Can I monitor personal devices employees use for work (BYOD)?
That's much more delicate. If the device belongs to the employee, you need their explicit, separate consent, and even then it's best to limit monitoring to a work partition or profile — never the whole device.
Can Argos read my Slack or WhatsApp Web conversations?
No. Argos doesn't capture application content, not even with the screenshot policy enabled, which is point-in-time and configurable, not continuous or geared toward reading text.
What happens if an employee asks who viewed their screen?
Argos keeps an access audit log: you can answer precisely who accessed a machine's screen, when, and why. That log protects the employee as much as the company.
The practical takeaway
Monitoring your company's PCs isn't just legal across almost all of LatAm when done with transparency, proportionality, and a legitimate purpose — it's part of your duty to protect the data your customers entrusted to you. The real risk isn't in monitoring; it's in doing it secretly, without a written policy, and with a tool that leaves no trace of who accessed what.
Get the order right: policy first, then the tool that respects it.
Want to see transparent monitoring in action?
Book a demo and we'll show you the full fleet view, with access controls and auditing working live.