Home office: Court in the Netherlands denies webcam obligation

The Corona pandemic has shaken up the working lives of many people. This is due in no small part to the temporary home office obligation that was in place to contain the pandemic situation. Many companies still rely on giving their employees the choice between a traditional office or a home office. But with the home office trend comes some important legal questions. An exciting ruling has now been handed down in the Netherlands. In our neighboring country, an employee got justice for switching off his webcam in the home office, although the employer asked him to switch it on.

Webcam obligation in home office not legal in the Netherlands

Some employers approach their employees with a bit of suspicion. This is the case, among other things, when it comes to the topic of home offices. For example, some companies are afraid that employees will not use the valuable working time to perform their work, but will waste a large part of it. In order to put a stop to this alleged problem, some companies are relying on control. This is also the case with the US software service provider Chetu. Chetu asks its employees to keep their webcams permanently switched on in the home office. In this way, they want to check whether work is actually being done.

But one employee refused to put up with this and kept his camera turned off. With the refusal, he also got directly the receipt in the form of a termination. Of course, the dismissed did not want to let this sit and went to court against the banishment from the company. As it now turns out, Chetu’s action was anything but legal. The District Court of Zeeland-West Brabant, which is responsible for the case, ruled that a webcam obligation on the part of the employer is invalid. The former employee of Chetu is now to receive damages in the amount of 75,000 euros.

Employee did not want all-day video surveillance in home office

If you take a look at what Chetu demanded from its employee, you can understand the reaction. As part of a training program, the plaintiff was not only supposed to be logged into the corresponding program for the entire workday. On top of that, the company demanded that the webcam remain permanently on and that the screen be shared. And that for nine hours a day. More control is hardly possible, which is why the employee resisted the request. Since the employer took the behavior as a refusal to work, the employee received his termination without notice by e-mail a few days later.

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Court sees fundamental rights violated

You don’t have to be a lawyer to get belly rubs in this case. After all, the US company’s practice is reminiscent of a surveillance state. Chetu, on the other hand, is not aware of any guilt and does not want to see any difference between a permanently switched-on webcam and presence in the office. Here, however, the company disregards the fact that the term home office already indicates the employee’s “home”. Consequently, the employer could have looked into the employee’s private sphere for nine hours every day. The court did not see any justification for this at any point. After all, the whole thing could have been achieved even with the webcam turned off.

As part of its ruling, the court referred to a landmark judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. The latter ruled in 2017 that video surveillance in the workplace was only possible in absolutely exceptional cases. This is certainly not the case for simple training. But Chetu’s actions are more than questionable, and not only from the perspective of fundamental rights. On top of that, the court already doubted the effectiveness of the termination itself. After all, it had not really emerged from the termination e-mail what behavior on the part of the employee justified termination without notice. On top of that, one cannot speak of refusal to work, as it was stated in the e-mail, in this case.