32 million euros fine for "excessively intrusive surveillance": Amazon protests against CNIL's decision
January 2024: E-commerce giant Amazon has expressed outrage over the fine imposed by the CNIL (French National Commission on Informatics and Liberty) at the end of 2023. The reason: overly intrusive monitoring of its employees' activities.
On December 27, 2023, the CNIL imposed a sanction on Amazon amounting to 32 million euros, in particular for having illegally set up "an excessively intrusive system of monitoring the activity and performance of employees" in its large warehouses in France (Amazon France Logistics).
As part of its activity and in order to achieve its objectives, Amazon has established a powerful system of control over its employees. This includes the use of scanners by employees in the warehouses, in order to evaluate in real time the quality of work, productivity, and idle periods of each individual.
Following complaints from employees of the subsidiary, the CNIL looked into the matter. It judged this tracking system to be abusive and disproportionate, especially since the data collected on employees is saved for 31 days.
Given the permanence of data processing, the impact of surveillance, and the pressure exerted on employees, violating the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), a sanction against Amazon was inevitable.
On January 22, 2024, Amazon published a statement on its website indicating its disagreement with the CNIL's decision and its intention to appeal. The company specifies, however, its decision to modify or delete two of the indicators pointed out:
- "In response to the CNIL's queries, we will disable this indicator."
- "As part of the modifications we have proposed to the CNIL, we will extend the trigger threshold for this indicator from 10 minutes to 30 minutes."
These signals could be interpreted as attempts at conciliation, in order to reduce the amount of the fine imposed. It remains to be seen whether the CNIL will take this into account to modify its decision.
References :
- Amazon's statement regarding the CNIL decision
- CNIL – Illegal surveillance practices implemented by Amazon
[Cover photo: Parker Coffman]
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