"French Regulator Slaps Amazon with $35M Fine for Excessive Worker Surveillance"
Amazon's French branch was fined $35 million for implementing an "excessively intrusive" system to monitor warehouse workers' productivity, including tracking their every move with barcode scanners and setting up illegal productivity alerts. The French Data Protection Authority found the system to be in violation of the EU's GDPR and accused Amazon of excessive storage of employees' performance data. Amazon has disputed the findings and plans to appeal, stating that the warehouse management systems are industry standard and necessary for safety and efficiency. This adds to the company's ongoing scrutiny over worker treatment, including allegations in the US of strict productivity goals leading to workers having no choice but to pee in bottles.