Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day

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**Frazzled**

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/worker-fired-for-disabling-gps-app-that-tracked-her-24-hours-a-day/

Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day [Updated]
"This intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person," lawsuit says.

by David Kravets - May 11, 2015 11:41am CDT

A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Plaintiff Myrna Arias, a former Bakersfield sales executive for money transfer service Intermex, claims in a state court lawsuit that her boss, John Stubits, fired her shortly after she uninstalled the job-management Xora app that she and her colleagues were required to use. According to her suit (PDF) in Kern County Superior Court:

After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone. Plaintiff expressed that she had no problem with the app's GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours and complained to Stubits that this was an invasion of her privacy. She likened the app to a prisoner's ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion…..

Intermex did not immediately respond for comment.

The suit, which claims invasion of privacy, retaliation, unfair business practices, and other allegations, seeks damages in excess of $500,000 and asserts she was monitored on the weekends when she was not working.

Arias' boss "scolded" her for uninstalling the app shortly after being required to use it, according to the suit. Her attorneys said the woman made $7,250 per month and that she "met all quotas" during a brief stint with Intermex last year.

"This intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person," the filing said.

Arias' attorney, Gail Glick, said in a Monday e-mail to Ars that the app allowed her client's "bosses to see every move the employees made throughout the day."

The app had a "clock in/out" feature which did not stop GPS monitoring, that function remained on. This is the problem about which Ms. Arias complained. Management never made mention of mileage. They would tell her co-workers and her of their driving speed, roads taken, and time spent at customer locations. Her manager made it clear that he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time.

**PhantomViper**

Why didn't she just left the phone at the office when she left work for the day?

**Frazzled**

Because you have to be reachable.

**PhantomViper**

Frazzled wrote:
Because you have to be reachable.

Then that means that she was always at work. And if she was always at work, then she was always on company time and the monitoring was perfectly justified.

Case dismissed.

You're welcome.

**Howard A Treesong**

Frazzled wrote:
Because you have to be reachable.

They can call your personal phone, the one they don't monitor.

She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.

**kronk**

After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone

Put me on that jury.

I'll give her lots of money.

**Henry**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.

There are lots of jobs where that isn't an option.
My two questions would be;
1) As part of her contract was she required to be contactable out of shift hours?
2) As part of her contract was it stated the phone could be used for personal use out of shift hours?

If either of those are yes I reckon she's got a good enough reason to try to sue.

**Frazzled**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Because you have to be reachable.

They can call your personal phone, the one they don't monitor.

She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.

Call? No one calls anyone any more. Its all about da emails da emails da emails.

EDIT: and leaving the phone at work would eventually have been a fireable offense. This is standard business practice for higher level employees, even when on vacation.

**Orlanth**

kronk wrote:

Put me on that jury.
I'll give her lots of money.

Thats not how jury selection works kronk.

**Frazzled**

Orlanth wrote:
kronk wrote:

Put me on that jury.
I'll give her lots of money.

Thats not how jury selection works kronk.

Depends on the local jurisdiction. If it were Corpus Christi or San Antonio, yea that kind of how it works.

This is counterbalanced by Louisiana where they occasionally eat the parties, or New Mexico where they just turn them into mutants.

**Orlanth**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Because you have to be reachable.

They can call your personal phone, the one they don't monitor.

She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.

While the GPS is intrusive, being contactable 24/7 is not if you are contracted for it.
Her role likely entailed some troubleshooting, reactive work or crisis management. Those cant call be scheduled for office hours.

I know someone who got a very high paid job working for the Sun newspaper as tech support. He spend 99% of the time doing nothing at work getting paid lots of money. The price for all that was that if the computers did have a problem he would be accessible and ready to go at any time from any place, he had to live within a certain distance of the office and remain within that radius even if off duty unless on formal holiday. This was because if the computers go down, no papers in the morning, that CANT HAPPEN for a major newspaper. Some things can wait until office hours, others things cant, you need both a can do attitude, the ability to back it up and constant availability to make sure your company doesnt fail.
These types of jobs are rare and usually very lucrative, being overpaid and underworked in return for a promise of constant readiness, and competent fast action.
The GPS thing is a logical extension of an existing type of work, and has more logic to it than it at first sounds.
It can get a lot more intrusive if you work in the power industry, especially nuclear. 'Sorry I cant respond to your class 1 alert at the reactor because i left my phone off' doesn't cut it.
Whether this level of control was warranted in the plaintiffs employment is yet to be apparent.

**Wyrmalla**

Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that? Whether or not she was going to be available due to her location (i.e. if she was on the other side of the country) could have been determined through talking to her instead.

Question then, if she loses this suit then does this give other companies precedence to do the same thing?

**Kilkrazy**

Personally I think all employees should be continually monitored for when and how much sex they have.

If you are having a lot of athletic sex, it increases the chance you may be too tired to work at full pace during company time.

**Orlanth**

Wyrmalla wrote:
Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that? Whether or not she was going to be available due to her location (i.e. if she was on the other side of the country) could have been determined through talking to her instead.

Potentially nothing, potentially a lot. It all depends how critical her role was for fast response. If she was a very highly paid lawyer, and those can be on 24/7 call location doesn't matter. If she is required for hands on technical expertise she will have a travel radius limitation that cant be broken even off duty unless on formal holiday with cover in response radius guaranteed.
A number of roles are in this category, when safety is a real issue or system failure causes delay or widespread failure in industries where such failure is not acceptable. Power stations and media outlets come under those categories.

Looking at Intermex its a money transfer service. So its working in the e-financial sector, and a highly regulated part of that. That's not as critical as a newspaper with a guaranteed print run time, or a live TV station or a power station, but it's getting there. If the servers have problems Intermex will quite reasonably employ people to be available to share their expertise within a very short timeframe in event of emergency.
GPS is a bit of a stretch, but how else will they know if an employee they pay several $k in bonuses for 24/7 call has decided to drive off to Oregon for the weekend.

**Wyrmalla**

I'll reiterate my point then that they don't need to track a person with GPS to know their location. All they have to do is phone the person and ask them. I mean the employee's already required to be available 24/7 so its not as if they can use the excuse of not being able to contact the person.

**notprop**

Wyrmalla wrote:
Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that?

"I can't come in/deal with that, I'm in Miami".

[Big Brother check App] "No you're not, You're at home".

**welshhoppo**

And then you can see if they are going on long trips abroad.

"We notice that you spend a lot of time on holiday, it is obvious we are paying you too much money "

**Wyrmalla**

notprop wrote:
Wyrmalla wrote:
Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that?

"I can't come in/deal with that, I'm in Miami".

[Big Brother check App] "No you're not, You're at home".

As Orlanth said though people on these on-call types of contracts need to be within a certain distance of the business 24/7. If they stray outside of that area they should inform their employer beforehand so someone else can be available. That bullgak argument wouldn't work even if they were in Miami. =P

Though also would it similarly be over stepping the mark to rather track where the call was coming from when the company phones to ask about the employee's location? As in rather than 24/7 surveillance, just checking when the call is made? OK, that could lead to companies phoning employees constantly and being a similar infringement, that and they'd probably have to do that through the phone companies.

...And is kind of sort of wiretapping, but I guess this case isn't quite the same because of how snazzy apps are?

**Orlanth**

Wyrmalla wrote:
I'll reiterate my point then that they don't need to track a person with GPS to know their location. All they have to do is phone the person and ask them. I mean the employee's already required to be available 24/7 so its not as if they can use the excuse of not being able to contact the person.

That would involve either.
- Phoning them all the time.
- Taking a risk they are where they say they are. In an industry that can't take risks.

Having standard tech support for an office off elsewhere, yeah call them up. But fast response is different, there are guarantees in the contract, for which the employee is well renumerated for.

Taking my mate in the Sun, his job description might as well be.

Job: Play online games all day
Salary: £35,000 starting rising to £50,000 after one year with annual bonuses.
Gaming rig supplied.
Painting table available if you want to paint and play tabletop games.

However for that he has to be there in the Sun's print room computer support area all night ready to drop everything and fix the computers so the morning print goes out on time. He also has to be on call by day.
He rarely does any actual work, and is constantly on courses to update his skillset.

I don't know how he is monitored but he could quite easily disappear across to France for the day if he so desired, and be back for work in the evening, he could even bunk off as the computers rarely have any fault. But if they do....
from what I remember the Sun takes a lot on trust with its tech support, they get a good package and in return don't abuse it, even if they only actually truly work for a few very hectic hours every year. Internex doesnt trust its employees as much, but then in the US its easy to make 'short journeys' of several hundred miles round trip. In the UK that sort of thinking is not prevalent.

**kronk**

There are some jobs where you are on call and have to be reachable 24/7. It's the job you chose, tough gak.

BUT, the GPS tracking at all times? That's bs.

**Tannhauser42**

Eh, on one hand, I feel "company phone = company can do what it wants with it." But I don't know all the details, like what terms she agreed to, etc. I do feel it's wrong that the boss was actively tracking her activities, apparently for the lulz.

**Eilif**

On clock tracking is a good idea. It's entirely reasonable to be able to tell how your employees are spending their work time.

However, the off clock tracking is total BS.

She needs to be reachable that's fine. Even if the job requires her to be able to reach the work within a certain time, then that's still no reason for the off-clock GPS. If she gets the call and can't make it in time then she get's punished/fired/fined, etc. However, making continual monitoring of personal time a condition of employment is probably not going to stand up in court.

The employer also didn't do themeselves any favor when the boss openly stated that he was watching (if that's what he said) and bragged about being able to tell a person's speed and where they were during personal time. That will not look good to the judge and jury.

**cincydooley**

So...she knew the app was installed. She knew the terms of the app for employment. She violated those terms and was fired.

Sounds right to me.

Don't like the terms, don't take the job.

**Orlanth**

Eilif wrote:

She needs to be reachable that's fine. Even if the job requires her to be able to reach the work within a certain time, then that's still no reason for the off-clock GPS. If she gets the call and can't make it in time then she get's punished/fired/fined, etc. However, making continual monitoring of personal time a condition of employment is probably not going to stand up in court.

Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a mnuclear power station.
There is an incident.
Finding out AFTERWARDS that your star employee is not within responce range and she gets punished/fired/fined doesn't cut it when you now have nuclear regulators all over your managers arse for her not being there.

Now Internex isnt quite as bad, but the stakes are still very high.

Look at what it does, electronic monetary transfer. So its going to have to respond prety damn quick to cybercrime. There will be staff on call in the office round the clock, but you cant really do that with top experts, or with extra staff to handle crises. These need be called in.
If there is a security lapse it could mean curtains fro Internex. A serious lay large percentage of businesses experiencing data security failure go out of business. Stats for this vary from 70% to 90% and while those figures are contested http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0660.html the threat is nevertheless large.
However due to the business nature any major dataloss at a money transfer site is a kiss of death to the company rep.

I can see how this is why some employees at Intermex may be on short call.

There are two other dynamics.

First, insurance - Saying that you have your expert fireteam on GPS tracker might impress insurers enough to grant lower premiums. Insurers take into account that your backup might not be where it says it will be unless physically on site.

Second, personal security - I have no idea if this is relevant here, but some types of employee are a kidnap risk. It's not too extreme a stretch to suggest that a key employees personal passcodes could somehow enable organised crime to sift vast amounts of money from an e-transfer business. Normally however that would be a GPS app feature the employee would turn on rather than be on mandatorily.

**Forar**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I think all employees should be continually monitored for when and how much sex they have.

If you are having a lot of athletic sex, it increases the chance you may be too tired to work at full pace during company time.

But consider how high employee morale would be!

If I was getting gymnastically railed on a regular basis, I'd probably be happier, dwarfing whatever losses in energy were present.

Also with that kind of regular workout and cardio (not to mention endorphin release and whatnot) there'd probably be fewer sick days as well. (well, barring pulling something, but that can be minimized with proper stretching)

What I'm saying is that I need to go have a frank discussion with HR about creative uses of our benefits package.

But seriously, this kind of tracking (at least off work hours) is unacceptable outside of some 1 in a million 'nuclear maintenance/emergency tech' style situation. She wasn't a nuclear technician, she was a sales exec for a fething money transfer service.

And I'm sure that's a lucrative, high stakes and high profit field.

But it doesn't justify her boss tracking her whereabouts and fething commenting on them. I'm going to hazard a guess that if it was kept on the down low it might not have been such a big issue. One of those 'back of the mind' things that we're uncomfortable with but often ignore.

Joking about tracking her driving speed and gak like that, however, seems a step way too far.

Like here at work, I know for a fact my net traffic is being recorded. I also know that IT has very, very strict requirements about when they can check such things. Basically they'd get fired unless it was to investigate criminal activity, and short of committing an indictable offense using said activity, work doesn't really care what I do as long as my job is done.

Had this been one of those 'locked tightly away and never glanced at unless there was a damned good reason to do so' things, it might not have been such a big deal. But like that Uber idiot bragging about knowing where people were and showing the data off, it turned the subtext into text, and people were rightfully annoyed.

**whembly**

kronk wrote:
There are some jobs where you are on call and have to be reachable 24/7. It's the job you chose, tough gak.

BUT, the GPS tracking at all times? That's bs.

I agree... I work for a major Healthcare organization in IT and I must be reachable at all times. I have a work supplied iPhone and iPad.

But this? F that!

**Eadartri**

I would like to know the terms of the position disclosed to the employee when hired. Was it stated: I am going to track your position 24/7. You have to have the app running all the time. Do not install it. ? Tracking a person also creates a liability to his or her security. (And it is the right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers and effects). What is the business need for gps monitoring? What harm came to the business by uninstalling the app? Was it incumbent upon the individual to disable the app to remain secure in her person?

**TheDraconicLord**

whembly wrote:
kronk wrote:
There are some jobs where you are on call and have to be reachable 24/7. It's the job you chose, tough gak.

BUT, the GPS tracking at all times? That's bs.

I agree... I work for a major Healthcare organization in IT and I must be reachable at all times. I have a work supplied iPhone and iPad.

But this? F that!

Yep, when I worked for a bank I HAD to be available to connect to the system and get gak done when I got saying "gak has hit the fan".

But GPS monitoring me?! What right does anyone have to monitor my private life just because of a job?!

**Wyrmalla**

People were concerned over being able to see where they were when playing on the Dakka Minecraft server. This...

**treslibras**

Orlanth wrote:

Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a nuclear power station.
There is an incident. <snip>

It seems clear that you have no clue how things work around a nuclear plant. They are always manned on-site, 24/7.

If things need to be monitored around the clock, and it is absolutey crucial for someone to be at a certain site to be able to fix things, and work needs to be done all the time, then you let them sit there. That is called a night shift or a weekend shift.

If that is not the case, you keep people on call. Being on call means that you agree to have your private life disturbed in cases of emergency or for special assigments. How often that can be done and how long you need to rest afterwards is normally defined by law.

In any case, being on call does not mean that you revoke your right to a private life.
And your private life may not be monitored around the clock, unless ordered by a court.
That might be different in China, and one might say between NSA and Google, there is not much privacy left anyway. But most western democracies grant some measure of legal protection of the private life.