Topic: Court win for worker fired for not keeping webcam on (Read 234 times)

That is the problem the employee do dodge the employer however the one who is paying would want to have work done on their condition - some of the companies here in my country, they try to manipulate their employees. But the employees too have their plan active so its always goes both way

there are employee concerns and there are management concerns as well. People would like to dodge and do the things on their own terms
This work from home is a very discomfortable thing - although your privacy is disturbed but then again you have to understand that management too have their things to take care

That will also provide uncomfortability to the employee. A time tracker would be enough to check if the employee is doing his tasks. Asking for an open camera the whole shift sounds like the company has trust issues. If I were the employee, it wouldn't matter if they will fire me for that reason. There are still better companies that would require too many restrictions. A company that trusts their employee despite working remotely would have more productive performance. 

I'm happy this lawsuit was won. I find it ridiculous that despite the economy moving increasingly to services from industries, we still use basically factory-like system of assessing how much a person works. If you're on a factory and you literally work all the time during your working hours because you're doing something on the supply like or whatever, it's one thing. If you're doing an office job, what should be evaluated is how much work you do (how many emails you answer, how much text you write, how many calls you make per day. Whatever the job is, there should be certain things which a person would be expected to do per day. I've worked an office job a bit and I've seen it myself: what takes me 20 minutes can take someone else an hour. So why should I be working the whole hour if I'm doing the same workload, just faster? There's no reason for that. So I think that we should switch increasingly to more flexible ways of calculating how much a person works, without surveillance and without the requirement to waste time in the office or in front of a pc at home when the work for the day is actually done. So IMO even screen-sharing which the employee was okay with is a bit much. If a person can watch TV shows and manage to do enough work per day at the same time, it should be of no concern to the employer.

I haven't read the court case beyond the facts presented in this article as a disclaimer, but this seems like an absolute bonkers decision. If someone doesn't fufull the terms of the employment, including always having a web cam on while the employee is working from home, it seems wild that the employee cannot be fired without having the company pay damages to the employee. I don't support "big brother" always watching. But if it's within the terms of the employer, then don't work the job. Find something else.

Forcing the company to cough up this much money for terminating an employee is insane.

I think  the reason why many employees want people to leave the webcam on is because of something called “overemployment”.

What is it? Basically it’s someone who has multiple jobs and each job doesn’t know about the other. Many have 2-5 jobs and it’s possible because they are all remote.

So employers want to see the webcam on to make sure you don’t have anymore than 1 job at a time.

it violates employee privacy
it will make employees uncomfortable, will not focus when working, and will always be constantly monitored while working, it is very stressful for employees.

Even if that's the case, I'd still feel uncomfortable knowing that a camera is watching me throughout my shift. It sounds too much. On top of that, not everyone has the ability to actually have a separate space for work. My apartment is approximately 35-40 sqm at most. The kitchen, living room, and dining area are one undivided room, while the bedroom doesn't have enough space for a desk. Thus, unless I settle by laying on the bed, there's physically no way I could have my own space to work in.

This is what happening in some of the companies here in my country, they try to manipulate their employees and force them to work even on a weekend. The employee will face suspension if they didn’t follow the instruction, and having that we left no choice but to comply. Leaving your web cam off should not be issue here as long as you are there presenting your work, CCTV can also a big help but it should only be for security purposes and not to be used to monitor employees from time to time.

As much as I'd like to work from home, being monitored by a webcam would be a huge bummer and a privacy breach for me. For those mentioning that offices usually have CCTV, it's clearly not the same thing. Your workplace isn't providing the comfort of your own home. It's pretty obvious that you won't be acting the same way in the office as in your home.

I'm generally easily distracted when at home and may be constantly scratching my head or my face when sitting on a computer, things I'd refrain from doing in a public office. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't get the work done; it's just due to feeling more comfortable in your own home. There are bound to be distractions in your house while you may not live alone. I understand the need to make sure your employees are productive and working as they should, but monitoring throughout their whole shift is way too much.

One of the most common thing where these employers do really mind off if their workers are really that slacking off on the time of work but to think and mind off sensibly that as long they do pass
out on those tasks and whats needed then i dont see any issues if ever they would really be turning off their cams but it turns out that some had really be that too strict on implying this rule.

Well, i cant blame them though and since you are paying someone then you could really demand on what rules should really be followed.If the worker had just agreed into those
terms then he doesnt have the right to complain.

There are some exemptions though which is understandable but on the time span of office or work hours then everything would really be just like the
same when you are working on physical.

If it was a formal workplace then there must be CCTV's on there, not only to watch the employees if they are working properly but also to watch out for the thieves and other crimes which can occur. If we work from home then it's rare that an employer require their employees to open their webcam while working, unless if there is a meeting.

In my opinion, what the employers did there is valid as long as it was still under the working hour but the cam must be off during break times or when the work has ended already. This is for the employers to know that their employees are not slacking off during working hours or they don't do some cheating.

I swear they'd have more productivity if they were left alone to their own devices instead of this kind of surveillance. This should maybe only be done to people who have a record of failing to do their tasks properly, instead of doing it to every worker out there, but even then, tracking their movement, calls, etc is way overboard. If need be afaik there should be methods of surveillance where they watch the pc instead of the webcam of the user themselves.

Specially if we consider how companies are hiring employees for the quality of their work, and not on the amount of time they spend on their work, so really, it doesn't make sense to monitor an employee for the entire duration of their work hours.

In fact, such manifestations appear due to distrust, or the desire to control "all processes". The growth of the problem coincided with Covid-19, when many people switched to remote work, i.e. outside the office, where "you can see how they all work." This actually characterizes the business badly and speaks of a poor level of personnel management. In our country, also in many companies, they believe that "to work is to sit in the office from 9-00 to 18-00". I adhere to a different idea - evaluating a person's work not by sitting time, or fatigue - but by the result, by meeting deadlines for completing tasks and maintaining quality. Now in one company I work as a hired CIO, I have about 20 IT specialists, most of them are developers. After the next round of the terrorist war unleashed by Russia in our country, many people found themselves far from their places of residence. But they didn’t stop working, I brought to the attention of the owners that the remote format of work would not only not reduce the quality of work, but would also be some additional motivation for employees. Office work is 2-4 hours of travel every day, in the morning and in the evening. The employee can use this time more efficiently, plus, understanding the trust, he will try not to let the manager down. In a word, it works and is quite effective, the only question is how to properly organize and present it.

This issue reminds me of Mcgregor's Theory X and Y. Theory X workers are assumed to be lazy and hate working, hence they should be closely monitored to ensure they are productive. While Theory Y workers are hardworking self-motivated individuals that need no supervision to do their job. Some worker if not monitored would abandon their task. The monitoring gives them the consciousness that even if they are at home, the environment is still a formal one. This is important, especially for workers that need supervision to perform their functions. Don't forget that the company's reputation and name is at stake, hence the employee's behavior at work should be monitored closely to curb costly misbehavior. If someone is hired as an online examination invigilator and the students observe that the invigilator is now watching a movie and has no interest in supervising the online examination. The student would be given the opportunity to engage in malpractice which would affect the goodwill of the firm negatively.   

Another important consideration is the contract of employment. If the document states that the webcam should be on at all times, then the company has done nothing wrong. As long as the employee is satisfied with the terms of the contract, he lacks the right to protest except if it is contrary to existing labor laws.   

Working at home is very tasking especially if you have little children and less house space. But if you have spare rooms or space, it would be better to have a home office that doesn't reveal or expose any personal or private aspects of the worker. 

But the companies should not go beyond their boundaries to monitor email, movements, calls, and others. This would make the worker a modern slave that lacks fundamental rights.

That's the thing, the company already has access to its employee's computers and will be able to track all the activities they make during those 9 working hours which is why probably the employee did not feel comfortable opening their webcam. Also, they are working in their own homes which is the reason why it was considered an invasion of privacy. Why should you be monitored in your own home if your work is already monitored from your computer?

Yeah all of us are being in the watch lol. It is like the US capturing through sitellite footage the Russian heavy military tanks and weapons assemble going to attack Ukraine around April/May at the heat beginning of the war.


That technology is not only to advantage and can be used against us too as humans.


This is to show that people working as slaves just to get paid. This case is a landmark one setting record that people privacy is important. To work in office is even different than also expect employees on webcam all day at home is slavery, a modern type of it. Work or office environment is different from home. The worker should have time to work and also maybe to visit the children and wife affair (lol) since at home while getting, just kidding  but serious privacy is important just like we having financial freedom from blockchain.


Yeah as least they write report at the end of the week or daily and send to management. I know of many workers during covid-19 pandemic people that work through their houses and have a central monitoring team that collect reports send by employees and they do verification of work done and not necessary to ask workers to on cameras and install cameras on them like bots. That is against privacy I agree with you.



I personally like the confidence of this employee standing up to his right and not quiet to swallow the breach of privacy like other colleagues they work together. This case is really to be use as example in court when matters of this come again not only in Netherlands but in other countries to respect the privacy of people and employees.

This kind of thing is a good reason why I hate being a wageslave. The copro thought that once they're employing you, paying you then you're their slave, give in and subject to every kind of privacy-invasive software out there. Union is non-existent about protect your rights from privacy-invasive software and method. It was like they expect you to see it as a normal thing "Hey, let me peep into your house just to check if you're at work?" Yeah, fuck off.

True, corpo just need to say what is the work quota for a day. As long as the employees meet their quota or KPI, who gives the fuck what they've done for the rest of the day? Poor work culture, lack of definition of the bonus, or maybe just poor wages. Those make the employees just do enough and not push themselves which in turn, corpo to want to have privacy-invasive software and method to monitor their employees. The shit is bleak.

What is the difference between leaving the web cam open or having a surveillance camera in the workplace?
I understand the idiosyncrasy, but both things seem the same.
The problem lies in the attempt of many employers to take advantage of workers and interfere even in their personal affairs to enhance profits, such as controlling family visits or the number of births and others.

I think each case must be evaluated on merit, because each scenario might be different. Example :

1. If you have a retail company, it might be acceptable if you place CCTV on the teller and also in the shop to prevent theft.
2. If you have a high security area, where you need to monitor for security (Prisons) ..then 24/7 security measures must be allowed.

The problem come in when you might be working from home and your employer wants you to have your webcam enabled while you work from home. (There are other people living in the same house and you might be invading their privacy)

So, it is difficult..... but it must be done on merit.. based on the specific circumstances.