The digital safe Arkevia, developed by Cegedim, is designed to receive and store dematerialized payslips. Its deployment in companies is based on a precise legal framework, primarily stemming from the Labor Law of August 8, 2016, and its implementing decree. This framework grants rights to employees and imposes obligations on employers, which are often misunderstood on both sides.
Employee’s right to object: an active guarantee, not just a formality
Since the Labor Law, the delivery of payslips in electronic form has become the default mode of distribution. Employers no longer need to obtain the prior consent of each employee to switch to Arkevia. This reversal of principle still surprises many HR departments.
However, the employee retains a right to object. They can request, at any time, to receive their payslip in paper format. The employer must then comply without delay or justification required from the employee. This right is not time-limited: an employee who accepted dematerialization for three years can revert to paper starting the following month.
For this right to be effective, the employer is obliged to inform the employee of this possibility before the first dematerialized sending. A written document, provided individually, must specify the modalities for exercising the right to object. Understanding the Arkevia safe in the company requires grasping this interplay between a default mode and a permanent withdrawal right.
Continuity of access after departure: the least respected obligation by employers
Arkevia’s competitors in the digital safe market highlight the legal retention period. The rarely addressed issue concerns what happens when an employee leaves the company.
The My Arkevia account must remain accessible after the employment contract ends, provided it has been activated and linked to a personal email address. The legal retention period extends up to 50 years, or until the employee turns 75. Access to the safe must operate independently of the former employer’s HR information system.
Two implicit obligations arise for the company:
- Provide the initial login details to the employee within a reasonable time after the safe is opened, and not at the time of departure when it is too late to activate them calmly.
- Ensure that the employee has entered a personal email address (and not their work email) before the contract termination; otherwise, access to the safe becomes impossible once the work email account is deactivated.
- Keep a record of this information process to prove that the employee was enabled to ensure the portability of their safe.
In practice, many companies neglect this step. The employee then discovers, after leaving, that they can no longer access their previous payslips. The personal email address is the keystone of the safe’s portability.
Proof of delivery and Arkevia timestamping: what the employer must be able to demonstrate
Dematerialization does not exempt the employer from proving that they have indeed delivered the payslip. With Arkevia, each deposit generates a timestamped acknowledgment of receipt, associated with a specific date and time. This mechanism creates a proof that can be contested in case of a dispute before the labor courts.
Without this timestamping, an employee could contest the reality of the delivery of a payslip. The employer would then find themselves unable to prove that they fulfilled their monthly obligation. The initial setup of Arkevia must therefore activate this traceability feature, which is not always the case by default during installation.
Probative archiving and GDPR compliance
The safe must meet the requirements of probative archiving: document integrity, data encryption, enhanced authentication, and access traceability. These criteria are defined by the applicable standard for digital safes and by the GDPR.
The employee has standard GDPR rights over the data stored in Arkevia: right of access, right of rectification, right to portability. The employer, as the data controller during the deposit, must be able to respond to these requests within the regulatory deadlines.
Electronic delivery clause in the employment contract: necessity or excess caution
Some companies include a clause regarding the electronic delivery of the payslip directly in the employment contract or in a service note attached to the internal regulations. The law does not require this clause since dematerialization is the default mode.
Nonetheless, the clause has probative value. It formalizes the employee’s information about the existence of the digital safe, the access modalities, and the right to object. In case of litigation, the employer can rely on this signed document to demonstrate that they have fulfilled their prior information obligation.
However, the clause cannot eliminate the right to object. No contractual stipulation can prevent an employee from requesting a return to paper format. A clause that would condition employment on the definitive acceptance of dematerialization would be unenforceable.
The Arkevia safe places the employer in a position where technical compliance (timestamping, encryption, portability) and legal compliance (information, right to object, continuity of access) are inseparable. The tool alone is not sufficient: it is the internal procedure to support the employee, from account activation to departure from the company, that determines whether the obligations are truly fulfilled.