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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @04:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-your-souls-are-belong-to-us dept.

Via Ars Technica:

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.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by tathra on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:18AM

    by tathra (3367) on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:18AM (#182250)

    just leave the company-issued iPhone at work. since the phone is company property, and they'll make the argument that they're tracking their property, not their employees, i find it very likely the courts will rule in favor of Intermex. so the only option for those Intermex workers that want privacy is to leave the phone at work and use it to set up call forwarding or something to their personal cell. i doubt many people would willingly give up the alleged social status or whatever they think comes with carrying an iPhone just to not be tracked all the time though.

    i do hope that somehow the courts rule in favor of privacy and that this kind of shit becomes illegal, but we all know that'll never happen in the neo-feudalist corporatocracy that is the US.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:08AM

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:08AM (#182300) Journal

    Not permitted. They were required to have the phone on them and powered up.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @05:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @05:54PM (#182500)

      > Not permitted. They were required to have the phone on them and powered up.

      Now if only people were required to RTFA before posting we could have saved so many wasted posts and wasted mod points.

    • (Score: 2) by khedoros on Thursday May 14 2015, @01:25AM

      by khedoros (2921) on Thursday May 14 2015, @01:25AM (#182746)
      It seems like a good option to forward calls to your personal cell phone, and leave the work phone at home charging when you go somewhere. How would your employer know the difference between you leaving the work phone at home while going out, versus you just being a homebody? And when you are at home, you can spend your time looking for a new job that doesn't make ridiculous demands on your privacy.
      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 14 2015, @03:10AM

        by sjames (2882) on Thursday May 14 2015, @03:10AM (#182776) Journal

        Provided that the tattletale software wouldn't also report on that.