AMAZON FRANCE LOGISTIQUE – €15,000,000 Fine (France, 2024)

The French DPA (CNIL) has imposed a fine of EUR 32 million on AMAZON FRANCE LOGISTIQUE for unlawful surveillance of employees. CNIL found that Amazon France equips its warehouse employees with a scanner to document certain tasks. Each scan records data that is stored and can be used to calculate a series of indicators that provide information on the productivity of each employee. The CNIL considered the establishment of a system that measures interruptions in activity with precision and potentially forces the employee to justify each break or interruption to be unlawful. The CNIL also noted that the data collected by the system and the statistical indicators derived from it should be stored for 31 days. While the CNIL did not doubt that Amazon's intensive business needs and high performance objectives could justify the implementation of the scanner system for business management, it considered that the extensive storage of all these data was unlawful. Overall, however, it considered the extensive storage of all these data and statistical indicators to be disproportionate. The CNIL also found a breach of the information and transparency obligation under the GDPR, as employees and external visitors were not adequately informed about the systems. Finally, the CNIL found that the video surveillance software was not sufficiently secured. ---Update--- The French Council of State reduced the fine from EUR 32,000,000 to EUR 15,000,000 because the DPO incorrectly assessed the appropriate amount of the fine. The DPO also has to publish the decision on its website.