Amazon was slapped with a $35 million high quality Tuesday after regulators in France determined that the e-commerce giant has an “excessively intrusive system” for keeping tabs on its warehouse employees.
The French Data Protection Authority, or CNIL, called out the corporate’s branch within the country, Amazon France Logistique, for requiring employees to make use of a barcode scanner to trace their progress on tasks – akin to storing items on shelves or packing them up for shipment.
Regulators said Amazon France Logistique arrange three productivity tracking alerts that were found to be illegal – one which sent an error message if employees had scanned items “too quickly,” one which tracked “idle time” of 10 minutes or more” and one which tracked “periods of scanner interruption between one and ten minutes.”
“Indicators tracking the inactivity time of employees’ scanners were put in place,” the agency said in a press release. “The CNIL ruled that it was illegal to establish a system measuring work interruptions with such accuracy, potentially requiring employees to justify every break or interruption.”
The CNIL also accused Amazon of “excessive” storage of employees’ performance data regarding their each day asks.
The corporate was found to have committed several breaches of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
The agency said it investigated Amazon’s practices in France following a series of “press articles,” in addition to complaints from Amazon warehouse employees.
“Such systems kept employees under close surveillance for all tasks carried out with scanners and thus put them under continuous pressure,” the agency added.
Amazon disputed the agency’s findings in a press release.
“We strongly disagree with the CNIL’s conclusions that are factually incorrect and we reserve the proper to file an appeal,” Amazon said within the statement.
“Warehouse management systems are industry standard and are crucial for ensuring the protection, quality, and efficiency of operations and to trace the storage of inventory and processing of packages on time and in keeping with customer expectations,” the statement added.
The scrutiny in France marks one other headache for Amazon, which has faced allegations within the US of leaving employees with no alternative but to pee in bottles as a consequence of strict productivity goals.
The corporate has denied wrongdoing.
