Amazon has been fined €32 million (£27 million) in France for using a surveillance system deemed "excessively intrusive" to monitor the activities of its workers.
The CNIL revealed that Amazon France Logistique, responsible for warehouse management, collected data from workers' handheld scanners. Amazon's activity tracking became so detailed that workers had to justify each break. Amazon strongly disagreed with the CNIL's findings as "factually incorrect."
France's data protection agency investigated Amazon warehouses based on employee complaints and media reports about working conditions, which found several violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including a system with three alerts monitoring employee activity that is deemed illegal.
First Alert: Scanning Speed Performed at Each Task
On Tuesday, the French Data Protection Authority, CNIL, stated that Amazon France Logistique provided warehouse staff with scanners that recorded their inactivity periods and the speed at which they performed specific tasks, such as taking items from shelves or putting items away.
The CNIL deemed the scanner system "excessive," because it measured work interruptions with such precision, potentially necessitating employees to justify every break or interruption.
In a statement posted on its European Union site, Amazon said its strong disagreement with the CNIL's conclusions, deeming them factually incorrect, and "reserve the right to file an appeal." They mentioned the industry-standard nature of warehouse management systems for ensuring safety, quality, and operational efficiency in tracking inventory and processing packages promptly aligned with customer expectations.
Amazon also stated that this indicator is crucial to ensure that "employees take enough time to store the products so they can follow our safety guidelines" and inspect each parcel thoroughly before storage. However, the company has opted to deactivate the collection of this data in response to the CNIL's queries.
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Second Alert: 10-Minute Inactivity
Furthermore, employees were considered "idle" if their scanners remained inactive for at least 10 minutes, per the regulator's discovery. Amazon argued that this data helped identify issues jeopardizing the company's operations or the safety of its workers. However, in response to the findings, the company will now extend the threshold for logging "idle time" to 30 minutes.
Third Alert: One and 10-Minute Interruption
A third alert system employed by Amazon indicated when a worker's scanner was interrupted for a duration ranging from one to 10 minutes, as outlined by the CNIL.
The CNIL stated that these systems subjected employees to constant surveillance during tasks involving scanners, "putting them under continuous pressure." Additionally, it asserted that this monitoring gave Amazon a competitive edge over other companies in the online sales market.
Safekeeping Staff Data for 31 Days
In December, the CNIL fined Amazon France Logistique after probes into warehouse practices and employee complaints. The regulator found that the company retained staff performance data for 31 days, a length of time it also deemed "excessive," violating EU data protection laws on multiple fronts.
In the U.S., Amazon has been under scrutiny for working conditions in its warehouses, as employees report punishing hours and intense surveillance by management.
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