A Florida-based business has been ordered to pay nearly €75,000 (about $73,000) in damages and other costs after terminating a remote employee from the Netherlands who objected to having their webcam on all day, according to NL Times. The unnamed employee was reportedly obliged to attend a virtual school with their webcam on throughout the day and their screen being remotely observed, according to the business, Chetu.
However, the employer fired the employee for "refusal to work" and "insubordination" after they protested that having their webcam on for "9 hours a day" was uncomfortable and an infringement of their privacy.
In a decision published last week, the court ruled that these were not sufficient reasons to dismiss the employee. “There has been no evidence of a refusal to work,” the court’s decision reads (via Google Translate). It added that “instruction to leave the camera on is contrary to the employee’s right to respect for his private life” and that the dismissal was not legally valid.
Specifically, the court cites Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which grants citizens the “right to respect for private and family life.” Chetu argued that requiring an employee to leave their webcam on would be no different from management being able to see them while they’re working in a traditional office. But the court noted that “strict conditions are attached to observing employees,” and that asking an employee to leave their camera on in this case was an unjustified intrusion.
The court has ordered Chetu to pay its former employee a substantial sum in damages, NLTimes reports. This includes compensation of €50,000 (around $48,000), roughly €2,700 (around $2,600) in unpaid salary, and over €8,000 (around $7,750) for wrongful termination. The company also needs to pay the employee for their unused vacation days.
As TechCrunch notes, firing an employee for not turning their webcam on may be more palatable in an “at-will” jurisdiction like Florida, but it seems employees under the jurisdiction of the ECHR have a lot more protections.
A spokesperson for Chetu did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.