French Company Fined for Constant Employee Video Surveillance

France’s data protection authority fined a translation services company 20,000 euros ($22,376) for using video cameras to constantly surveil employees at their workstations.

The National Commission for Informatics and Liberties, known as CNIL, said June 18 that Uniontrad Co. violated the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which limits the use of CCTV cameras on employees and recommends that companies destroy footage after 15 days.

CNIL directed Uniontrad to post notices alerting employees of surveillance, set an appropriate data retention period, limit the use of cameras to avoid constant observation, increase protection of employee data, and create a password manager system ...