The post-accident team, conducting post-accident proceedings, creates numerous documents. These can be protocols of explanations of the victim, information from witnesses of the accident, drawings, sketches, photographs of the place of the incident. However, there are no direct provisions on the possibility or lack thereof of digitizing such materials. Now the technology allows you to scan each document and create its electronic version. This is an important issue for practice, especially during the COVID-19 epidemic and remote work.

Reporting an accident at work forces the employer to initiate post-accident proceedings. It is included in the regulation on the determination of the circumstances and causes of accidents at work. There are quite a lot of formalities. Starting from providing assistance to the injured party, ending with sending the post-accident protocol to pip and registering the event in the accident register.

In the course of post-accident proceedings, documents are generated. Even if the obligation to draw them up does not result directly from the regulations. There is no obligation to:

• recording the victim’s explanations,
• collecting written information from witnesses of the accident,
• preparing a medical opinion in the field of medical assessment of injury.

The form of these documents is also an open question. Documents created for the purposes of the proceedings, even those which are generally optional, are usually in writing. This, of course, is justified by custom and technical possibilities.

Today, virtually any document can be scanned and uploaded with a single click to anywhere. The question is whether electronic documents can be used for the purposes of post-accident proceedings? Such a solution would significantly contribute to improving the process of determining the circumstances and causes of the accident. As well as the storage of documents collected in the course of post-accident proceedings.

It seems that such a solution can be used. Documents can be scanned as long as the employer and the accident team ensure proper protection of electronically transmitted files. They must not fall into the wrong hands. It is difficult to conclude that a better, more efficient and more appropriate procedure during the COVID-19 epidemic will be sending documents by post, courier or using authorized employees as servicers.

One more question arises. Can the use of electronic documents for the purposes of post-accident proceedings be challenged by PIP? Here the answer will not be so unambiguous. A lot depends on the labor inspector you come across. A servant and a person accustomed to paper documents can always question the use of electronic documents. However, it seems that any rationally acting inspector should not have any objections to electronic documents. They are part of the principle of speed and simplicity of proceedings. UODO should also have no objections. Provided that the employer, as the administrator of personal data, will properly secure the transfer of documents between the post-accident team – the employer – the injured party.

Source: https://www.portalbhp.pl/blog/forma-elektroniczna-dokumentow-w-postepowaniu-powypadkowym-10009.html

Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.