A Florida-based company called Chetu was fined at least $70,000 by a Dutch court for firing an employee who refused to keep his webcam on all day. according to NL Timesan English-language news channel focused on the Netherlands.
According to the ruling at the end of September, an employee who worked remotely for the software company (based in the Netherlands) was called up for a meeting at the end of August. He was told to share the screen and have his webcam on all day.
The employee replied to the company that: he considered it an invasion of privacy and was fired three days later. A few weeks later, he filed a lawsuit against the company – which he won.
The Dutch court cited Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to privacy at home and in your correspondence.
The court ordered Chetu to pay various fees, including unpaid salary and unused vacation days. The point of sale calculated the total would be at least $75,000, or about $73,000 USD – plus court costs.
The whole incident seems to have influenced Chetu’s presence in the Netherlands. The NL Times reported that, according to data from the Chamber of Commerce, the company’s branch in the country appears to have closed.
Chetu is a software company that claims on its website to have customers all over the world. It plans to double current workforce, according to a late September article in the South Florida Business Journal. It did not respond to a request for comment.