Follow -up of activity on the computer, keyboard strike recorders … The monitoring systems at work are on the rise and potential abuses are precisely in the viewfinder of the National Commission for Data Protection (CNIL) which has just published an enlightening press release on this subject.
An intrusive device
The gendarme of personal data inflicted a fine of 40,000 euros on a company which he chose not to appoint. This company exercises in the real estate sector and has monitored its employees disproportionately.
This is the case with a particularly intrusive video surveillance device which captured the images and the sound of employees in the premises. The CNIL specifies on this subject:
The company did not justify any exceptional circumstance concerning the capture of sound and images continuously via the video system. Such actions affect excessive damage to the rights of employees.
The authority also sanctioned the use of software which scrutinized the activity of certain employees. The latter was supposed to judge their work and their productivity by automatically detecting if an employee stopped hitting on the keyboard or moving his mouse for 3 to 15 minutes with potential retained wages.
Moreover, this particularly marked surveillance is not a relevant method to assess professional investment, considers the CNIL: “However, the periods during which the employee does not use his computer can also correspond to actual working time as part of his missions (meetings or telephone calls, for example)”.
Flying their employees is a bad idea
The risk linked to this device is also that it “Can lead to the capture of private elements”. This is the case with personal emails, or even passwords. The data gendarme therefore decided to make this case public “In order to inform any person subject to such devices”. The company concerned agreed to immediately withdraw its surveillance software.
In addition to these legal risks, employee surveillance seems to be a very bad idea for companies. According to research by David Welsh, professor at the State University of Arizona, these strategies tend to encourage them to infringe the rules or to carry out small acts of sabotage: unauthorized breaks, a voluntarily slower work, or even theft of more frequent equipment. More information on this subject in our previous article here.
