The CNIL has fined Amazon 32 million euros for “monitoring its employees”.

This verdict came after four years of investigation. On Tuesday, Cnil, the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties, announced that it had imposed a 32 million euro fine on Amazon France Logistic – the branch of Amazon that operates large warehouses in France – over its employee activity monitoring system. “ Too loud ” The French privacy watchdog accuses the American giant of disproportionately exploiting scanners used by employees on a daily basis, for example to identify stored products or products taken from shelves. Through these scanners, business interruptions and, more broadly, monitoring employee productivity Data is collected for the warehouse management system that burdens the employees. Constant pressure » and which, more broadly, refers to the group as ” To gain a competitive advantage over other companies in the online sales field », according to the CNIL.

“We strongly disagree with the findings of the CNIL which are factually incorrect and we reserve the right to appealIn a press release, an Amazon spokesperson quickly defended.Using warehouse management systems is standard industry practice : They are essential to ensure safety, quality and efficiency of operations and inventory tracking and package processing on time and in accordance with customer expectations. » The fine, however, could be excessive, 170 million euros was requested by the CNIL reporter last September.

At the center of this conviction are three surveillance tools used by the scanner and deemed “illegal” by the CNIL. First, “Stow machine gun ”, is a device that reports an error when an employee scans a product “too quickly” when it should be stored after its arrival in the warehouse. While for Amazon, this system guarantees enough time to control stored items, the CNIL sees it as a way to monitor.Any collection made continuously by an employee to the nearest second ” Note that the group decided to remove this system during discussions with the CNIL during the investigation.

Permanent supervision

As for the other two tools in the tricolor crosshairs, they basically make it possible to indicate a scanner interruption period of ten minutes or more, or one minute to less than ten minutes. For the CNIL, this leads to the following“permanently»Any interruption by an employee who has to justify turning off his scannerAny time any time, even very short” False, responds Amazon, which believes that the purpose of this practice is to detect any failure in the supply chain. But, again, the group proposes to extend the interruption time from ten minutes to thirty minutes to trigger reporting.