Amazon France Logistique, the company that manages the warehouses of the large US e-commerce company Amazon in France, has received a MORE 32 million euros from the French authorities for having “created an excessively intrusive” surveillance system of employees. The fine was issued on December 27, but was made public on Tuesday by the National Commission of Informatics and Liberties (CNIL), the authority responsible for ensuring the application of the law on the protection of personal data in France.
According to the CNIL, the data collection carried out by the company on the scanners used by employees to read the barcodes of parcels constituted “an excessive activity and performance control system”. The commission found the collection of three metrics particularly problematic: the times a package was scanned too quickly (in less than 1.25 seconds), the number of times the scanner was inactive for more than 10 minutes, and the time elapsed between the time a worker clocks in at the start of the shift and the first package scanned.
The company said it will appeal, and in a communicated wrote that the CNIL’s conclusions are “factually incorrect.” According to Amazon, surveillance practices are common in the logistics industry and serve to ensure the safety, quality and efficiency of its operations.