Ikea France fined $1.2 million for spying on staff

Ikea was ordered to pay a sizable fine after it was found guilty of spying on French employees.

The Swedish furniture retailer was directed on Tuesday to pay 1 million euros, or $1.2 million, by a French court, which found the French branch of Ingka Group, which owns most Ikea stores worldwide, guilty of improperly gathering and storing data on its employees over several years, according to Reuters.

Ikea, which has acknowledged there was some wrongdoing, was accused of breaching employees’ privacy, reviewing records of their bank accounts, and sometimes using fake employees to write up reports on staff, tactics worker representatives said were used to target union leaders or offer Ikea an advantage in professional disputes, the report added.

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Attorneys for France’s Confédération Générale du Travail, or CGT, union had hoped to hit Ikea with a 2 million euro fine but were still somewhat pleased with the outcome.

“It’s the symbolism here that matters,” said Solene Debarre, a lawyer representing the CGT.

The Ingka Group said it was reviewing the decision to determine whether protocol changes were needed following other steps to end the surveillance.

“IKEA Retail France has strongly condemned the practices, apologised and implemented a major action plan to prevent this from happening again,” the company said.

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Representatives for Ikea and the Ingka Group did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.