GDPR: German Laptop Retailer Fined $12.6M For Video-Monitoring Employees (zdnet.com) 100
The data regulator for the German state of Lower Saxony has fined a local laptop retailer a whopping $12.6 million for keeping its employees under constant video surveillance at all times for the past two years without a legal basis. From a report: The penalty represents one of the largest fines imposed under the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) not only in Germany but across Europe as well. The recipient is notebooksbilliger.de AG (doing business as NBB), an online e-commerce portal and retail chain dedicated to selling laptops and other IT supplies. The State Commissioner for Data Protection (LfD) for the state of Lower Saxony said that the company installed two years ago a video monitoring system inside its warehouses, salesrooms, and common workspaces for the purpose of preventing and investigating thefts and tracking product movements. Officials said the video surveillance system was active at all times, and recordings were saved for as much as 60 days in the company's database.
Germans treated as humans at work. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rosbifs and Yankees stunned. Thought everybody belonged to their employer for the time of work.
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Re: Germans treated as humans at work. (Score:3)
Mind you that Americans misunderstand this:
The problem is that employees were not being told! And weren't able to opt out. Let alone withour repercussions. They didn't even know.
You are perfectly allowed to film your employees if you follow those rules. I's just that nobody would willingly work for you anymore if you go as far as NBB with it.
Which is exactly why they kept it a secret.
So, if it happened without your (non-forced) consent, you *do* deserve compensation, in whatever you lost, including privacy.
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If A component from a laptop "falls" into my private pocket, you have no rights, as a business, to check it, right?
Yes, you have. Next stupid question?
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If A component from a laptop "falls" into my private pocket, you have no rights, as a business, to check it, right? Yes, you have. Next stupid question?
Apparently, NO, you DON'T. To the TUNE of 12 million.
Next obtuse comment....
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Apparently we have.
But what has the topic of illegally filming to do with checking your pockets?
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Because they have some suspicion?
When stuff goes missing always when YOU work you and your shift is suspected. For that I do not need illegal video surveillance of the whole staff.
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You know where everyone worked.
If one is suspicious, you start observing him, when you have the suspicion.
And not before. Just like in any country that is a state of law.
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What privacy do you think you should enjoy in a private business?
Normal ones that come from being in a semi-private part public place. If you have a medical emergency then that should be treated as private medical information and at the least you should not be identified without in any news released. If you find out that your kid has cancer that should be treated as private.
If someone's device is recording some of that stuff then they have an absolute duty to protect that data about you so that noone, not even the owner can view it after they are informed that something
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I'm not aware of anyone having made that accusation?
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To elaborate. Your examples say if you find your kid has cancer that should be private and yeah it should, lets say you are discussing that at work and its captured by the cctv. So what? The company isn't going and broadcasting that to anyone and the chances of anyone actually hearing that by video would be very slim and even if they did then that information would/should still be treated as private. Same as if you said it to your friend at the pub you wouldn't expect them to go tell ev
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I don't know about Germany, but in Italy remotely surveillance/monitoring of employees is always forbidden, it doesn't matter whether you tell them or not. There are obviously exceptions for particular jobs (handling of hazardous materials, cash oe valuables, etc.)
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The problem is that employees were not being told!
Neither the summary nor the article says that the employees were not informed of the surveillance.
The article says that customers visiting the company were not informed, which implies that employees were informed.
The article also says that the constant surveillance caused "stress and pressure" on the employees, which would not be the case if they were unaware they were being recorded.
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Not many people more of a privacy nut than I am, but this is bullshit. Privacy belongs to the owner of the device. If I provide my employee with a device for use for company puposes, I have the right and the duty to know everything that device is used for. There should be no implied sense of privacy for the user of the device that I own.
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Not many people more of a privacy nut than I am, but this is bullshit. Privacy belongs to the owner of the device.
OK, let's ignore that you have got completely the wrong end of the stick, because it wasn't about laptops, it was about surveillance cameras owned by a laptop retailer.
So ignoreing that, no. There are rules about what you can and cannot do to your employees. Giving them a work owned device doesn't exempt you from the rules simply because the device is yours. IOW, you can do whatever you want on
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Re: WHAT? (Score:4, Interesting)
We went inverse ever since. To a point where it became unhealthy again. This is actually how we got neo-n@zis.
Now we recently got a bit of a wave of the straight-up version again. Which is now countererd with a wave of inversion again.
I hope it stabilizes and doea not escalate.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Informative)
How is this unusual, or even a bad thing? When you're on the clock and on company time, you should expect to be monitored. You do not carry a little personal bubble of privacy around with you - it ends when you walk through the door and punch the clock.
You actually do carry a little personal bubble of privacy around you; it's a legal one and it's called "privacy rights". You don't sign them away just by punching a clock.
LOL, a bubble isnt a building. (Score:2)
You actually do carry a little personal bubble of privacy around you; it's a legal one and it's called "privacy rights". You don't sign them away just by punching a clock.
Yes, a BUBBLE, not a freaking dyson sphere the size of the business.
Or is your argument these were xray cameras?
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You actually do carry a little personal bubble of privacy around you; it's a legal one and it's called "privacy rights". You don't sign them away just by punching a clock.
Yes, a BUBBLE, not a freaking dyson sphere the size of the business. Or is your argument these were xray cameras?
Hyperbole much? If you have a problem with citizens having privacy rights, the letter of the law, it's scope, or it's enforcement, then take it up with the lawmakers. I'm sure they'll view your ridiculous statements as utterly coherent "arguments" worth debating.
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Hyperbole much? If you have a problem with citizens having privacy rights, the letter of the law, it's scope, or it's enforcement, then take it up with the lawmakers. I'm sure they'll view your ridiculous statements as utterly coherent "arguments" worth debating.
Apparently you don't know what Hyperbole is. The building, son, the building. Not a "REAL" Dyson sphere. Thanks for playing my "morons will read what I wrote wrong and interpret it for their own stupid argument" game.
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The issue is thinking that the right of an employer to monitor an employee completely defeats the employee's privacy right as a person. The truth is that both entities have their rights and require to be balanced against each other.
This typically means that an employer definitely *does* have the right to monitor an employee, but only under specific circumstances. How strict these regulations are depends a lot on the jurisdiction though.
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Hyperbole much? If you have a problem with citizens having privacy rights, the letter of the law, it's scope, or it's enforcement, then take it up with the lawmakers. I'm sure they'll view your ridiculous statements as utterly coherent "arguments" worth debating.
Apparently you don't know what Hyperbole is. The building, son, the building. Not a "REAL" Dyson sphere. Thanks for playing my "morons will read what I wrote wrong and interpret it for their own stupid argument" game.
Sorry baby, I'm all out of troll food today. Have you considered peddling your butthurt bullshit in a video game somewhere? Perhaps you'll have more luck.
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You actually do carry a little personal bubble of privacy around you; it's a legal one and it's called "privacy rights". You don't sign them away just by punching a clock.
Yet does the bubble disappear when you go near government buildings or walk across public places or drive on motorways, where it has plenty of CCTV surveillance.
And at work places do companies need to hold up privacy to the extend that workers can wear lingerie and have sex behind their desks without their bosses taking notice of it.
Germans are so obsessed with privacy laws that some of them get a thrill out of breaking the law by having sex orgies in parking lots. https://www.bild.de/regional/r... [www.bild.de]
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You actually do carry a little personal bubble of privacy around you; it's a legal one and it's called "privacy rights". You don't sign them away just by punching a clock.
You do a bit while your at work. It's not like this company is selling the video on and the business has the right to know what its employees are doing on company property on company time. I'm all for sticking up for workers rights and all that but trying to say the business has no right to know whats going on is a stange hill to die on.
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You actually do carry a little personal bubble of privacy around you; it's a legal one and it's called "privacy rights". You don't sign them away just by punching a clock.
... but trying to say the business has no right to know whats going on is a stange hill to die on.
You seem to be reading more into my statement than is actually there. Just because the workers have rights does not mean or imply that their employer has zero rights. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Re: WHAT? (Score:5, Interesting)
American employer ethics are are nightmarish and Rockefellerian to us Germans. You deserve better!
We expect an athmosphere of trust. You are on your business's side. And they are on yours. Why else would you work there?
We hold the moral standard high, that we not try to trick or cheat each other. It's not a game of who can rip off whom the most.
If you don't trust somebody, why would you hire them? (It feels like in the US, nobody trusts anybody.)
And if you do trust somebody, why would you use surveillance?
It sounds more like an "employer-employee relationship" from an enslaved peoples in the show Stargate.
I really hope you get stronger and start standing in for your rights. *You* built America, after all.
It is sad, that 1984 is casual nornality in your head(s). If only one adds "... if done by a corporation" to it. (See: Censorship. Bleepin out words on national television.)
To an extent where you defend it like North Koreans defend their dear leader.
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Ronald Reagan made the statement: Trust, but verify. That sums up things. We trust you to hire you, but we're going to verify that trust.
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You can verify that trust by looking at how the employee performs over an extended period of time. There's no need to verify it every 30 minutes.
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Lenin actually. Reagan was simply taught that quip for his negotiations with the USSR.
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We are a nation of temporarily embarrassed billionaires, each dreaming of how we'd run our vast enterprise and what kind of yacht we'd own, while we try very hard not to think about the reality of the life we're actually living.
Very few give a thought to the apolitical reality: everyone cannot be a billionaire, life must be decent for everyone or it is unpleasant and unstable. We're watching riots on the right and on the left, but still dreaming of what our TPS report coversheets will look like, for the slo
Let me help you understand (Score:2)
Let me help you understand the culture of large American corporations. Yes, there will be some variance from place to place, but the general principles seem to apply almost universally once a company grows so large that most of the employees don't know all of the other employees. So here goes:
Management no longer considers employees an asset to be developed, nor a long term relationship to be fostered. Instead, the company has an adversarial relationship with the employee, viewing them in terms of the
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You are on your business's side. And they are on yours. Why else would you work there?
Because you need money to live and they pay money for work. Is there another reason to work there? Sure you can try to get a job you enjoy in a field you like but ultimatley it's about the paycheck in the vast majoity of cases. I have no personal allegiance to the place I work and they have none to me. Its a mutually beneficial arrangement. They need stuff done and I need money. The main reason to do my job properly and not fuck about is to keep that arrangement going.
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German Culture is fueled from a lot of scary stuff that the country endured during the 20th century.
Moving from A Monarchy to a Fascist government to a good portion of the country being controlled by a Communist Government, with a lot of threats for the rest of the government, finally to its Democratic Socialist government.
The Cultured collective memory has a lot painful points on how a lack of humanity and a push of following Ideology and/or an influential person as caused so much pain and problems, that t
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Hi!
How is this unusual, or even a bad thing?
It is illegal, at least in the EU, in the way it is (was) done in this case.
When you're on the clock and on company time, you should expect to be monitored.
Within, and with, reason. Not covertly.
You do not carry a little personal bubble of privacy around with you - it ends when you walk through the door and punch the clock.
Yes, I (we) do, at least in the EU, and no, it does not.
Some countries actually care about these things. If you live where that is not the case, you have my sympathy.
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You do not carry a little personal bubble of privacy around with you - it ends when you walk through the door and punch the clock.
I think you missed the word "German" in the text. This is not about the US.
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You really only have to read the letters GDPR to know that. Don't even have to make it past the first 4 characters of the headline.
Re: Indeed! (Score:4, Informative)
Fun actual fact: Even the state must obey this. You see this whenever you enter public transportation. Right on the vehicle door. Clear and easy to understand. With QR code to inform yourself about your rights or to demand deletion even when using the vehicle.
And if NBB had properly informed their employees beforehand, and allowed them to opt out without repercussions, this would have been legal even withing the GDPR.
The only thing you are right at, is that spying agencies haven't been hit by massive lawsuits because of this yet. Because this also applies to them. This is a matter of time though, I think. The GDPR is relatively new. And people still adjust.
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"And if NBB had properly informed their employees beforehand, and allowed them to opt out without repercussions"
I'm curious ... how does one "opt out" of a video monitoring setup? Demand a separate work area that doesn't have cameras? "Without reprocussions" meaning they won't lose their job for making such demands?
And, how does video monitoring differ from having a supervisor standing near by observing performance and behavior, besides costing less because one person can watch several monitors at on
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You said it. If you don't want to be recorded, you have t
The Question is... (Score:1)
Who's gonna monitor and review all that video? (Score:2)
Must take a large staff just for surveillance.
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Must take a large staff just for surveillance.
You don't monitor it. When a laptop is stolen, you go back to see who took it. Every cash register in America has at least one camera trained on it. No one is looking at every second recorded.
Yeah, but see, paranoid nuts dont know there aren't people like in TV and Movies in front of some huge bank of TVs fapping off to the vapid worker's idol fuckery at work for 8 hours a day.
That wouldn't make news.
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"Inside" the premises (Score:5, Insightful)
When I read the headline, I though "oh another company that surveils their employees at home", but no this was not some spyware installed on the laptops. It was clearly an internal security system.
This is crazy. Monitoring premises goes both way. They not only protect against insider theft, but will also help outsiders from harming them. With all those crazies attacking tech campuses in the recent years, does it not make sense to have 24/7 surveillance at the premises?
Pre-covid we had security card access at all doors (with logging), and camera for almost all angles inside our buildings. I never thought "gee, they are infringing my privacy". At my internship the computers had a warning "we might use keyloggers", and I though they were serious. There is no reason not to keep track of what is going on inside premises, as long as that does not extend to the outside.
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It was clearly an internal security system. This is crazy. Monitoring premises goes both way.
What this clearly was is good intentions gone wild. Security in a warehouse? Sure. Tracking product movement and thefts is normal. Security in sales rooms and offices with data retained for very long periods, that's where they crossed the line.
With all those crazies attacking tech campuses in the recent years, does it not make sense to have 24/7 surveillance at the premises?
That's not actually a thing in countries that treat people like people.
Pre-covid we had security card access at all doors (with logging)
Logging? Why logging? Not being funny here, this is another one of the things you can't track in Germany. If a security card is personalised then it is not allowed to be logged. If a security card
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But these are not just "perceived" security issues.
Target was hacked by the HAVC service company:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/20... [krebsonsecurity.com]
They were late in detecting that. Without internal surveillance, it could have taken even longer. Think about not having logs of who is inside (security card logging).
A business is a business. Unless they track you at home, I expect to have keyloggers, screen recorders, video surveillance, and door logging all the time. As you said, this also protects me as a worker. If at any ti
Re:"Inside" the premises (Score:4, Insightful)
Target was hacked by the HAVC service company:
If you're relying on video surveillance to keep you safe from nefarious actors you specifically invite in then you're doing something VERY wrong. Maybe being banned from taking video surveillance will actually force you to take security more seriously.
A business is a business.
Indeed. It's a business, not a farm. Treating employees like cattle may work in the USA, but in Europe a business is a business and employees are treated as humans.
Expecting privacy at work (except for breaks / restrooms / etc) does not sound meaningful. That is one place I prefer security over freedom.
If you want security then tracking you via surveillance is the single dumbest way to go about it. I did a great little test the other day in a secure area of one of our facilities after I left my phone in there. I went to the smokers room (damn Germans still have those) and told him I left my phone on his desk and asked if I "could quickly borrow his key". He said "No, I'll come with you" and put down his cigarette. Absolutely the right answer, and far better than pointing a camera at his desk.
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If you want security then tracking you via surveillance is the single dumbest way to go about it. I did a great little test the other day in a secure area of one of our facilities after I left my phone in there. I went to the smokers room (damn Germans still have those) and told him I left my phone on his desk and asked if I "could quickly borrow his key". He said "No, I'll come with you" and put down his cigarette. Absolutely the right answer, and far better than pointing a camera at his desk.
Man, that is some of the most obtuse shit I ever read.
You just said "security is ONLY AS GOOD AS THE PEOPLE".
Not all people are "GOOD", my dude. THAT is why we USE technology to TRACK their dumbasses.
But you keep going with "all people are good", hoss.
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You just said "security is ONLY AS GOOD AS THE PEOPLE".
Nope. I said video is shit. You think a camera would have prevented a hack? You think a camera would have prevented me doing something dangerous if an employe gave me the keys to the door? You think cameras stop people plugging in USBs, or lock doors as people leave?
Security is a complete system and set of processes that work together to remove *the ability* for something goes wrong. Video surveillance does jack shit, ... oh expect maybe provide great footage to use against you in court to expose how poor y
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Keylogging is pretty stupid. It is a security risk, why would anyone do that? And under EU worker laws: not allowed anyway.
Re: "Inside" the premises (Score:5, Informative)
This is only crazy in the way that not getting beaten for "something you clearly were guilty of" is "crazy" for abused children.
Hint: Since the GDPR, you MUST tell everyone when and what you are recording, MUST give detailed reasonable justified reasons for why, and MUST inform of the duration of storage, which must be reasonable and justified too.
BEFOREHAND.
WITH PROVEN AGREEMENT BY THOSE RECORDED. (E.g. signing it, or entering a door with such a sign anyway.)
And the reasonability of those reasons you give, must be court-proof. Otherwise one can sue. They cannot override law either.
Furthermore, we have the expectation of privacy in public. By that we do not mean nobody who was there can point and laugh and tell others later. We mean that it can't go out to the entire world and permanently ruin the person's life even decades after. That is called forgiveness. Even a murderer is forgiven after 20 years.
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Furthermore, we have the expectation of privacy in public. By that we do not mean nobody who was there can point and laugh and tell others later. We mean that it can't go out to the entire world and permanently ruin the person's life even decades after. That is called forgiveness. Even a murderer is forgiven after 20 years.
This wasnt in Public. I can understand "disclosure", that can be done with COMMON FUCKING SENSE and a few SIGNS.
The world is spinning into this "memememe" bullshit as an excuse to act like a selfish asshole -- in this case -- at a PRIVATE business where they are EMPLOYED.
Again, I can understand the lack of disclosure being a problem, but, 12 million? What do you think you are doing "in private" inside someone else's BUSINESS?
again, that is just people screaming "MEMEMEMEMEMME" all the time with zer
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What do you think you are doing "in private" inside someone else's BUSINESS?
As an employee?
a) having a private chat while working calling my boss a dumb ass?
b) having a private chat telling another employee I will on vacation with my wife at place X
c) having a private chat telling another employee that I will leave the company in 3 month?
d) having a private chat telling another employee my wife is pregnant, and I'm going to take "parent care vacation" in 6 month?
e) doing a private phone call during a perio
Re:"Inside" the premises (Score:5, Insightful)
Video monitoring has to be justified. If there has been theft in a particular area then that might justify putting cameras there, temporarily until the thief is caught. It does not justify putting cameras everywhere, especially in places like sales offices where no theft has taken place and any thieves would likely be caught with their swag on cameras outside the building anyway.
It matters what area it is, e.g. the office is more sensitive than the back door. It also matters what the camera can see and if it has sound. The intrusion must be justified and while there is a fair bit of leeway given this kind of blanket surveillance is not allowed.
The word you want... (Score:2)
It is done to PREVENT and CURTAIL potential crime, AND as a way to track after the fact.
sticking up video cameras after the theft is tantamount to stupidity, hoping the thief will do it AGAIN! and that they don't notice your "now" existing security.
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To prevent crime they have to know they are being video recorded, and apparently that was not happening.
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I just have one main one facing the offices just in case someone does break in. I find letting people know about my office security camera and giving them access to it completely calms people nerves. Mostly they've been using it to find lost stuff, or find out who was in their office messing with stuff. If they want to look, go for it. There's no harm.
Re:"Inside" the premises (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, you can have surveillance in the workplace in Germany. You have to comply with local law. That was the case 21 years ago when I had to explain this to a Texan idiot from the security section in the IT department of the USA company I worked for at the time. It is the case now. In fact, we are all compliant to German law as GDPR and other privacy regs have had a lot of passages copied from the German and Austrian law code.
1. The surveillance must be fit for purpose. You cannot just jot cameras every where and record every move of an employee. That is absolute NO. If you want surveillance to prevent theft, etc, you have to install it only where it is relevant to the task.
2. The surveillance records must be disposed of in a timely manner. You cannot keep them forever.
3. The surveillance system records must be accessed only under a specific procedure and only as a part of a formal investigation.
Looks like they violated 1 + 2 and I can bet that they violated 3. Violations of 3 are the norm in UK and USA as well as any other place which is stupid enough to violate 1 or 2. In the days when I carried the hat of head of IT in a company I had more than one case where I was threatened to be fired myself if I do not give company execs access to video footage WITHOUT a formal HR case in progress. I caved in at the time (difficult to resist when you have a family to feed and mortgage to pay). Try doing it in Germany - the result will be as described in the article.
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They not only protect against insider theft, but will also help outsiders from harming them. With all those crazies attacking tech campuses in the recent years, does it not make sense to have 24/7 surveillance at the premises?
This is Europe, not the US. There is an expectation of privacy in a civilized nation.
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The issue, as I understand it, is not the surveillance.
It's the retention, the lack of notification, and lack of opt-out option for the employees.
Correction: (Score:5, Informative)
The commissioner did not say that.
The company said that they die it for that reason.
The state commissioner said that the company said that.
And he disagreed. Which is key here.
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The commissioner did not say that.
The company said that they die it for that reason.
The state commissioner said that the company said that.
And he disagreed. Which is key here.
The commissioner can agree or disagree all she wants, she still needs to make sense and the lack of good sense is key here.
She argues, "Video surveillance is a particularly intensive encroachment on personal rights, because, theoretically, the entire behavior of a person can be observed and analyzed," and while her argument is true does it ignore that it also entails observing and analysing the behaviour of thieves, which is exactly why companies are allowed to install cameras in the first place. It is how
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Seriously the "Nothing to hide argument"?! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Just read this https://spreadprivacy.com/thre... [spreadprivacy.com]
I can provide more links but I bet you will not even read the one provided.
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I can provide more links but I bet you will not even read the one provided.
You must have a lot of fear in you, but I read both of them briefly, and neither explains why people would experience "continuous stress and pressure". We have surveillance almost everywhere here in the UK and I can say with certainty that nobody gives a single thought about it. So you can dig up as many articles you want, they simply don't reflect reality at this point. All you're really trying to do is to spread fear and doubt about CCTV as if behind every camera there was some imaginary evil ghost lurkin
How is this bad (Score:2)
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If the company had done all that, there wouldn't be a problem.
What about Amazon? (Score:2)
Despite the strict German labor laws, Amazon's warehouses in Germany get away with as much as they possibly can and some more.
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Source?
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The source is mostly anecdotal: my wife worked for Amazon in Germany. They don't actually break the law but they treat employees extremely poorly [by German standards]. Strikes are frequent and unionization is coming, so things are bound to change.
If you Google for amazon deutschland betriebsrat and similar terms you will find a myriad of articles on the topic.
Out of place (Score:1)
To punish with a fine of $12.6 million when every employee has got a camera on their mobile phone and makes frequent use of it even at work, then the punishment becomes unreal. And laptops get stolen a lot. A company, who sells valuable items that are in demand, should have the right to protect itself against theft. The verdict is a sad victory for crime, and not one against crime, because it signals every criminal that it has become more safe to steal. It will further drive off future investors and so dama
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A foreign investor is a company who sets up business in Germany. This company then produces goods in Germany and exports them. Much of the resources needed for the production are then imported and don't simply all come from within Germany.
To believe privacy laws couldn't have an effect on a economy when one just focuses hard enough on export is just weird. Do you believe Germany is doing a fire sale where everything has to go and this would somehow make for the best economy?
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No, the fine were too little. Should have made an example of that company. 25% to 50% of the company's total worth should the fine have been.
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But paid to whom? It doesn't even seem to be going to the employees but to the government. So all the huffing and puffing you are doing is for the government, the biggest surveillance organisation there is. And by taking even more money from the company do you risk jobs, because when a company can no longer remain profitable then they'll have to fire people. So there you are, moron of the year, financing Big Brother and putting people out of work, because you don't want companies to do what governments have
GDPR (Score:2)
GDPR is going to do a lot more than this to get in my good books. Like maybe stop making literally every website produce that stupid popup up that everyone has to blindly click Agree on if they want to use the internet.
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The websites don't have to show the popup if they only use technically required cookies.
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This happened because NBB has no workers council (Score:3)
While workers' councils are widespread in Germany's companies in the industrial and the traditional commerce sectors, they're still not as prevalent in the IT sector, even though workers and employees have a guaranteed right to form one. If there would have been a workers' council at NBB, any management attempt to install any kind of surveillance would have been subject to the workers' council's participation, and as the most important job of a workers' council is to see that laws are followed within the company, it would have prevented the illegal installation that now has become rather expensive for the company.
seems a little unreasonable. (Score:3)