US Company Fined For Firing Employee Who Refused To Turn On Webcam At Home
NDTV
An employee from the Netherlands who was fired for not turning on his webcam receives a $72,700 settlement from a software company in the US.
A Dutch court has ordered a US company to compensate a sacked employee for $72,700 after the employee was fired for turning the webcam off while working from home, according to a report in Fortune magazine. Chetu, a Florida-based telemarketing company, sacked the employee for refusing to be watched "for nine hours per day" by a program that required sharing of the screens and streaming of his webcam.
According to the news report, in a decision against a US software corporation, a Dutch court concluded that "requiring remote staff to keep their webcam on constitutes a human rights violation."
"Florida-based Chetu must now pay $72,700 to a former remote staffer based in the Netherlands after the company fired him for refusing to keep his webcam on for "eight hours per day."
Additionally, the court cited the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: "Video surveillance of an employee in the workplace, be it covert or not, must be considered as a considerable intrusion into the employee's private life."
