Swedish fast-fashion chain H&M has recently been fined more than $41 million (35.2 million Euros) for allegedly breaching privacy and tracking the personal lives of their employees on a company database.
The data includes but is not limited to: Workers’ illnesses, religious beliefs, family problems, and vacations. The notes, which were used to evaluate employees’ performances, were often based on workplace meetings and one-on-one conversations. The data collected was intimate, possibly confidential, and very much not meant to be seen and analyzed by others.
As many as 50 other managers were able to view the notes of each employee. Managers at H&M’s Nuremberg customer service center began these practices in 2014, at the very latest.
Regulators are calling H&M’s practices a “particularly intensive interference” with employees’ rights, while Johannes Caspar – the data protection commissioner – called the scandal a “serious disregard” to workers’ data privacy.
Regarding the scale and severity of the breach, Caspar also commented: “The qualitative and quantitative extent of the employee data accessible to the entire management level of the company shows a comprehensive research of the employees, which is without comparison in recent years.”
We live in a world where data is the most coveted commodity. Utilizing employees’ extensive personal details for company gain is morally compromising, as it allows for workers to be manipulated for profit. The situation H&M created has left their employees vulnerable, to say the least.
H&M has commented on the accusations, stating that these practices are “not in line with H&M’s guidelines and instructions”. All in all, the company seems to be cooperating with the investigation. Though they are not able to fully comment on the accusations at this time as the incident is still under legal examination, H&M has stated that they are offering financial compensation to those employees who were at Nuremberg for at least a month since May 2018. They have also stated that they have taken several steps to protect their workers’ data privacy from here on out.
Let’s hope that this multi-million-dollar fine sets a precedence for the rest of the industry – organized data collection and negligence at this scale will not be tolerated.
