LONDON: France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) has fined Amazon 32 million euros (about $35 million), saying its system of monitoring employee activity and performance at its warehouses was “excessive.” Following press articles about practices in Amazon’s warehouses, the CNIL conducted several investigations. It also received many complaints from employees. “Signatures tracking employee scanner inactivity time were installed.
“The CNIL ruled that it is illegal to install a system that measures work interruptions so precisely, potentially requiring employees to justify every break or interruption,” the commission said in its decision. The CNIL ruled that the system of measuring the speed at which items were scanned was excessive. Based on the theory that items scanned too fast increased the risk of error, an indicator measured whether an item was scanned by a previous After the scan was done in less than 1.25 seconds. “In general, CNIL considered it excessive to keep all the data collected by the system, as well as the resulting statistical indicators for all employees and temporary workers, for a period of 31 days,” the Commission argued. Such systems kept employees under close surveillance for all actions performed with the scanners and thus placed constant pressure on them.
It also took into account the large number of people involved (several thousand) and considered that the constraints imposed on employees through this computer surveillance contributed directly to the company’s economic profits and made it competitive over other companies in the online sales market. Gave benefits, CNIL said.
Amazon said it strongly disagrees with CNIL’s findings which are “factually incorrect and we reserve the right to appeal”.
“The use of warehouse management systems is standard industry practice: they are essential to ensure safe, quality and efficient operations, and to ensure inventory tracking and package processing on time and in accordance with customer expectations,” the company said.
