France’s National Commission for Information and Civil Liberties (CNIL) fined Amazon for spying on employees and other violations. The regulator ordered the local unit to pay 32 million euros for “excessive intrusion” into employee privacy. MarketWatch and La Monde report this.
The CNIL discovered that Amazon uses special scanners through which the “breaks and activities” of the company’s warehouse workers are monitored.
The devices record even short pauses of 1 to 10 minutes. According to the regulator, this approach is excessive and forces employees to account for every step.
Furthermore, the CNIL considered the control of the processing speed of packets to be an infringement. The system identifies cases where the next item was scanned in less than 1.25 seconds. The company uses this approach to avoid errors.
The CNIL also described other measures as excessive, in particular the monitoring of employees. The company monitored the time between the employee’s arrival at the workplace and the first scan.
Among other things, Amazon did not inform its staff about the video surveillance and did not guarantee the confidentiality of data, which violates EU law.
The amount of the fine imposed is equivalent to approximately 3% of the turnover of the French division of the company.
Amazon, for its part, expressed its categorical disagreement with the CNIL’s conclusions. The company reserves the right to appeal the fine because it considers the regulator’s conclusion to be inaccurate.
Author:
Natalia Gormaleva
Source: RB
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