France’s National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (Cnil) fined Amazon France Logistique (AFL) €32m for “its system of monitoring the activities and performance of its employees”, which it described as “extremely intrusive”.

The French regulator assessed in a statement that the data collected by Amazon’s logistics network in France through the scanners used by warehouse workers to process parcels constitutes “an excessive system of monitoring their activity and performance”.

These scanners record the idle time of the workers, but also “with a precision of a second” the rate at which they manage the parcels, Cnil noted. At the same time, the scanners record the time that passes “from the moment the worker ‘snaps a card’ at the entrance” to the time the first package is scanned, the regulatory authority added.

Cnil estimated that this system forces workers to justify every interruption, even “of three or four minutes”, in the operation of their scanners, putting them under “constant pressure”.

“We strongly disagree with Cnil’s conclusions, which are based on incorrect evidence, and reserve the right to appeal,” an Amazon spokesperson responded in a statement.

The company has two months to file an appeal.