Did you know that Ikea spied on employees in France?
The French branch of Ikea and one of its former presidents were sentenced to a one million euro fine for spying on several hundred employees between 2009 and 2012. Full details
A French court ruled that Ikea must pay a 1 million euro fine for spying on its employees and some customers in France for several years: from 2009 to 2012 at least, if not a decade earlier.
However, Ikea was acquitted of the charge of systematic breach of personal data.
The trial, which took place in Versailles, involved fifteen people in all. These include Jean-Louis Baillot, former CEO of Ikea France (the local division of the Swedish group), other executives of various levels and four policemen involved in the espionage system.
Baillot received a two-year prison sentence and a € 50,000 fine. Instead, Stefan Vanoverbeke, who led Ikea France from 2010 to 2015 and still holds a leading position, was found not guilty.
The first evidence of the conduct of Ikea France – which had hired private investigators and police officers to collect personal information on its employees – emerged in 2012 thanks to some journalistic inquiries and the mobilization of the Force ouvrière union. The company then fired four managers and adopted a new code of conduct.
A SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM OF 600 THOUSAND EURO A YEAR
The French news agency AFP , based on the documents of the court of Versailles, wrote that Ikea spent up to 600 thousand euros a year on private investigators. BBC News talks about an illegal "mass surveillance system" used by the managers of various Ikea stores to collect information on employees and candidates. It would have affected about 400 people in all.
THE ROLE OF PARIS
At the head of this system, AFP writes, was Jean-François Paris, former director of the risk management division of Ikea France.
For example, Paris had asked to spy on an employee in a Bordeaux shop who, according to him, would have been transformed from a "model employee" to a "protestor": "We want to know how this change happened", he wrote in an email, of the “risk of eco-terrorism”.
Paris also had an employee supervised to figure out how he could afford to drive a new model BMW.
ACCESS TO THE POLICE DATABASE
Paris's messages were usually sent to Jean-Pierre Fourès, the head of the Eirpace surveillance company. Fourès responded by providing confidential information from the police database, obtained with the help of the four officers put on trial.
It is also possible that IKEA France itself provided confidential information to the police. In fact, an internal document of the company called for the report on an employee to be sent to the police to "get rid of that person through a legal procedure outside the company".
THE COMMENT OF IKEA FRANCE
At the opening of the trial in Versailles, IKEA France issued a statement to "strongly condemn" the violations of privacy and to apologize for the situation, which "seriously undermines the values and ethical standards of the company".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ikea-francia-spionaggio-sorveglianza-dipendenti/ on Tue, 15 Jun 2021 13:33:16 +0000.