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France ’s data privacy guard dog , the CNIL , has fin Amazon ’s logistics subordinate in France€32 million , or $ 35 million at today ’s exchange rate . The CNIL enjoin that Amazon France Logistique has implemented a “ surveillance scheme ” that is “ excessively intrusive . ”
In fussy , the CNIL is focus on the warehouse barcode scanner and Amazon ’s data gathering practices come to to the connected equipment . When an order is process , an Amazon picker grabs a Cartesian product , scans it with the connected scanner and assign it into a crate so that it can be shipped to the client . Similarly , employee use the scanner to stack away new items in the warehouse .
“ Indicators traverse the inaction time of employees ’ scanners were put in place . The CNIL rule that it was illegal to ready up a system measuring work interruptions with such accuracy , potentially requiring employees to justify every break or disruption , ” the French governor wrote .
Both the “ idle meter , ” which indicates a period of scanner downtime of 10 minute or more , and the “ latency under 10 minutes , ” which go after scanner interruptions between one and 10 minutes are deemed illegal by the CNIL when it comes to information processing . The CNIL is using the GDPR as the legal basis of the case .
Amazon has also implemented a “ stow machine gun ” indicator to prevent mistakes . It signals an mistake if you scan an detail less than 1.25 minute after scan the previous point . It sounds like a way to prevent twofold - run down mistake . But that ’s a GDPR number too , according to the CNIL .
Again , it ’s worth point out that the CNIL is list some data processing actus reus . This is n’t a labor case ; it ’s a data processing case about illegitimate and excessive monitoring of the storage warehouse proletarian .
“ The processing of these two indicators intend that the employee is potentially require to absolve at any time that [ they ] are interrupting [ their ] digital scanner , even for a very short time , ” the CNIL wrote . “ As implemented , the processing is consider to be excessively intrusive . ”
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According to the French governor , Amazon uses this performance data to assess the overall performance of its storage warehouse workers on a weekly basis .
“ More mostly , the CNIL considered extravagant to keep all the data collected by the system of rules , as well as the resulting statistical indicators , for all employees and irregular workers , for a period of 31 day , ” the French regulator wrote .
Amazon’s answer
The company publisheda protracted statementfollowing the CNIL ’s fine . “ We powerfully disagree with the CNIL ’s conclusions , which are factually incorrect , and we might appeal the decisiveness , ” Amazon drop a line .
The company ’s first argument is that Amazon is n’t the only company in the logistics diligence using a connected warehouse management system of rules . In particular , the company order that it helps when it occur to load balancing between several warehouses and several team .
“ If we are face an order peak , our organisation will help us accommodate the work load between teams so that we can keep processing orders in a safe and efficient manner , ” Amazon indite .
And in more details , Amazon says that the “ stow automobile gun ” indicator has been create so that workers can inspect merchandise before they are stored to verify that they are n’t damaged . The party will disable that indicant in its system .
As for the “ jobless sentence ” metric , Amazon will extend the threshold demarcation line . From now on , the company will trigger this index after 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes .
