Subjecting workers to webcam monitoring violates privacy, Dutch court rules
A Florida-headquartered company has been ordered to pay about €75,000 (around $73,000) in compensation and other fees after firing a Netherlands-based remote worker who refused to keep their webcam on all day, NL Times reports. The company, Chetu, said the unnamed employee was required to attend a virtual classroom with their webcam turned on for the entire day and their screen remotely monitored.
But when the employee refused, saying that leaving their webcam on for “9 hours a day” made them feel uncomfortable and was an invasion of their privacy, the company dismissed them, citing “refusal to work” and “insubordination.”
The court ruled that the reasons for dismissal were not valid
In a decision published last week, the court ruled that these were not sufficient reasons to dismiss the employee. “There has been no evidence of a refusal to work,” the court’s decision reads (via Google Translate). It added that “instruction to leave the camera on is Contrary to the employee’s right to respect for his private life” and that the dismissal was not legally valid.
Specifically, the court cites Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which grants citizens the “right to respect for private and family life.” Chetu argued that requiring an employee to leave their webcam on would be no different from management being able to see them while they’re working in a traditional office. But the court noted that “strict conditions are attached to observing employees,” and that asking
