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Worker Fired For Disabling GPS App That Tracked Her 24 Hours a Day
An anonymous reader writes: Myrna Arias claims she was fired for refusing to run an app that would track her location even when she was off the clock. She is now suing Intermex Wire Transfer LLC in a Kern County Superior Court. Her claim reads in part: "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...."
The solution: leave the phone at work when you are off duty.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
You're a slave, and if you're lucky, and behave, your servitude will have some modicum of treatment that is necessary to keep you fit for employment.
Welcome to the new future. Same as the old past.
So, what is good about all these chains anyway?
GPS trackers are being used ubiquitously nowadays. I do not have any problems with them, although I do not have any. They are being used for controlling people who drive for a living.
But, using them to track people off duty is a completely ludicrous. It should be banned. In Portugal, I know, the Personal Data Protection Law strictly forbids it. IMHO, the US could learn a lot from certain European laws.
They should be allowed to know where their property is. She has no case.
This may well be sarcastic, but they do know where their property is. It's with the employee. They have no reason to care where the phone is spatially since they aren't going to physically access the phone. The reason for the app wasn't to track the phone, but to track the employee attached to the phone.
Think. You keep using that word...
Fuck off. It means exactly what I and others think it means. What you and the other fascists who run around ridiculing others for is for objecting to the blatant over reach and Police State tactics employed by the FORMERLY FREE United States of America by implying that we should have no expectations of "privacy", nor any "rights" at all for that matter. So while you and I both know that America is nothing short of a Fascist Police State, on Paper it's supposed to be a Free Society and though the Interests of a Corporate Personhood outweighs the rights of a "citizen" -- In this case, the "citizen" is correct and shall be awarded damages for this intrusion into her "privacy" and violation of Labor Code.
Companies need to learn that slavery works totally different in 20th century:
The company should have offered her 5% less salary on the job offer and then ask if she wants to join a "voluntary data collection study" that measures employee driving behavior off-duty compared to work tasks. She could win by being part of the study a maximum of 7% on top of her salary. On top she should be proud of being part of this circle of privileged employees that push the boundaries of making work a better place. And all she had to do is install an app on her phone that collects data. During her anniversary review she would receive a 5% as part of being in the study, by just missing by few points the bracket for 7%.... but she can do better next year...
I hope one would see the sarcasm in the previous statement...
I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The plaintiff was working two jobs during this time (she wanted to attain health insurance at the earlier place) and the defendants maliciously called the other employer apparently within a week of when she would have gotten her health insurance benefit and got her fired there.
It's one thing to fire an employee, you can always find some fig leaf pretext to cover your ass. But using private information that you got from the employee and going out of your way to contact another employer and cause harm to the ex-employee? There's no legitimate cause for that. That's demonstrates that it wasn't just a bad employee.
Even if that is the case, that is not what they were using the functionality for.
From the article:
"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." (emphasis mine)
They were not using the GPS functionality to track the phone. They were using it to track employees both on and off-work.
This is creepy as heck. IMHO, there should be criminal laws against this sort of behavior. This should be a criminal case her manager, not a civil one against the company.
Apparently you have never worked in a job where you are on call 24/7 even when you only work in the office 9-5. I am a Sr. Systems Engineer, but when things go really bad somewhere, I am supposed to be reachable at all times except when I specifically am "on vacation". Fortunately, I get to use my own phone with no obnoxious company software on it.
Nevermore.
Her employer required her to use the company issued phone, and to have it on 24/7 (from the lawsuit).
Your "solution" would result in the exact same thing hers did: termination.
If the allegations are true, it sounds like both her manager and CEO were douchebags. And stupid ones at that.
She probably lied about it.
That's no justification for the employer's action. If your employee doesn't behave properly, you talk with them, maybe put them on performance plan, or maybe terminate their employment.
To talk with another employer to get her fired there is pretty unethical and evidence of douchebaggery.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
once you did that, it's not your phone and your life any more.
they want crap apps on a phone, they have to provide the phone. otherwise, you are chattel, like cattle, only not in demand at the supermarket.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
First, read TFA. It's short. Then you won't look like a moron. You'll see things like the first paragraph:
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.
You'll also find bits like this:
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.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
i agree bud but its gotten this way because the people allow it until someone like her makes a fuss and puts a stop to it.
One thing she could have done - turn call forwarding to a private phone on, so that the 24/7 condition is met, and then... sky's the limit.
Get a friendly taxi driver to take the phone for the night.
Put it on an RC plane and take it for a trip over the city center.
Put it in a box and attach with a magnet to your boss' car.
Borrow it for a friend who does car races (preferably illegal) to take it for a 200MPH ride.
Root the phone, get a GPS spoofing app and "send it to Antarctica".
Or just leave it in a desk drawer at work...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
In my lifetime the number of incarcerated Americans has risen about 300%.
And selling yourself into slavery is a PRIVATE agreement between a PRIVATE master and a PRIVATE slave. That doesn't make it okay, though!
Now go fuck yourself.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There are certain things that government DOES have a right to interfere with. This should be one. Especially when job markets are less than ideal there are certain things and areas that government should interfere in so that things don't have to get as bad as they have been in the past before people rebell enough to fix things by themselves.
I'm sure you're against minimum wage too? After all if someone wants to work $0.01 in a private contract, why not let them? Extreme example sure but if you let it play out I'm sure we'd get close tovtgat number. Walmart will be able to find someone at $8 then at $7.89, $7.79 and so on. If this wasnt the case walmart would already pay more than minimun wage for all employees.
but it was never hers. It was company provided!
So why didn't she just use a different phone while off duty?
That's a great plan. Then she could instead be fired for not taking calls from customers 24/7 on the phone in the tin box instead. Brilliant!
Maybe the US of A should put more money into public schools, infrastructure and public service instead of F-22's.
Maybe the US of A should put more money into public schools, infrastructure and public service instead of F-22's.
The only difference between putting the money in education or defense is which set of bureaucrats, corrupt administrators, industry partners, and union members get to line their pockets.
I see universities and elementary schools a like --- when they get extra money, more of the additional cash goes to landscaping, campus beautification, and to massively wasteful injudicious technology spending --- such as networking equipment, computers, or software they can't actually use -- but they got the windfall $$$ (Probably spent with contractors and "Value-Added" Resellers that are somehow related to someone important in the decision making process), than is spent on resources that directly affect education.
She should have bought her own phone for after hours and left the work phone at home. No employer can force you to carry their phone when you are not working.
We already spend more per student than the rest of the developed world, how much more should we spend? Maybe it's how it's being spent, not now much is being spent...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Like it or not, a lot of nasty employment conditions are technically legal or hard to prove. Really the best thing is to publicize what is happening on glassdoor and similar sites. It's not going to immediately stop entry level employees, who have few better choices, from applying. But confirmed bad practices will deny the perpetrator ability to recruit top talent for positions that have the most impact on the company's future.
As of now, Intermex is described as nice working environment on Glassdoor. If I was considering an offer and read about 24/7 GPS tracking in page after page of reviews, I certainly would not join.
In my lifetime the number of incarcerated Americans has risen about 300%.
I KNEW this was someone's fault!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
You got +5 for this nonsense? The "Fascist Police State" that you condemn is the mechanism that this lady is using to right the wrong committed against her by her employer. Your entire post is off-topic ranting about issues that have nothing to do with the TFA.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Maybe the US of A should put more money into public schools
The United States spends more per pupil than most other countries with less to show for it. There are many problems with the American education system; a lack of money is not one of them, at least in the aggregate (there are obviously individual school districts that are hard up)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Where's that money actually GOING though? Odds are it's not getting to the classroom, it's being diverted to administrators' pockets.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Do we believe arsTechnica or the actual court document?
The wasted money goes to extra levels of administration, special ed teachers for students who will never be able to do anything but drool, lavish facilities, and technological frippery.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Law enforcement isn't all that dangerous of a job. In fact, it doesn't make the top 10.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Please. More money does NOT make for better students. The poorest of students have often times been the best of students. Each individual student needs some THING to ignite a hunger for knowledge within him. If/when that hunger is lit, nothing can hold a student back, short of death.
We Americans, despite the economic "hardships" of the past decade, remain among the wealthiest people in history, world wide. We don't starve. We aren't dropping in the streets from diseases. We don't have open warfare in our streets. Barring some violent weather now and then, we almost all go home to find our homes intact every day.
More money in the education system, or even more money in the classroom, will NOT make for better students. History proves that idea to be FALSE.
Our education system is badly flawed, and that flaw can be traced, at least in part, to the idea that more money can "fix" education. We have pampered little children who are distracted by meaningless nonsense. Kim Kardashian? Reality TV? Rock stars? Sports? Oh yeah - drugs. I can understand drug usage by the dirt poor, who live miserable lives. Those who spend all day out scavenging for a little bit of food, and still go to bed hungry - I can forgive them for trying to escape reality. Our little rich kids, with to much time on their hands? Escape from reality? They are LOSERS. And, we have raised them to be LOSERS.
Money isn't the answer.
Kids need to learn morals. Kids need some hardship. Kids need to WORK for the privilege of higher education - and I do NOT MEAN that they should be impoverished for life in exchange for an education. I mean, they should have to WORK for the privilege, instead of being pampered.
Keep the money. Instead, go into the classrooms, and get tough. We've needed a strong dose of tough love in the classrooms for the past 30 years, or more. Crack the whip, and stop treating kids like babies. Just drop pre-school, headstart, kindergarten, and all the rest of that shit.
I started school at age 5, and went straight into first grade. One month after my 18th birthday, I graduated high school. No amount of pre-schooling implemented since 1960 has improved on the final results among high school grads. NOTHING has improved those final results.
All that money has been WASTED.
If you have an old rotten ship, which threatens to sink every time it sails, how can you justify continuing to send it to sea? How can you justify painting it, again and again, and calling it seaworthy?
That is precisely the state of our education system. It is sinking, and we continue to paint it, to make it look pretty.
Cut the funds, and force school administrators to actually EDUCATE children!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Uhhhh - you're pulling emotional strings here. How about we examine the actual numbers of cops killed, nationwide?
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/of...
It doesn't appear that the number of cops killed in a given year in the US has EVER EXCEEDED 300. The highest year on that chart looks like 1974, with 280.
How does that compare with other occupations? Hmmm . . . .
Have you ever expressed similar sentiments for logging personnel? Pilots? Fishermen? Truck drivers? (I'll give even odds that you are one of the millions of Americans who INTENTIONALLY CUT TRUCK DRIVERS OFF on a daily basis) How about auto mechanics? Have you ever given a thought to them? Do you think about miners, in the same way you think about cops?
There are a lot of occupations more dangerous than police work. I get so tired of the cops getting all the glory, all the sympathy - but you have none to spare for the people who keep the cogs of civilization working.
The 10 Deadliest Jobs:
1. Logging workers
2. Fishers and related fishing workers
3. Aircraft pilot and flight engineers
4. Roofers
5. Structural iron and steel workers
6. Refuse and recyclable material collectors
7. Electrical power-line installers and repairers
8. Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers
9. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
10. Construction laborers
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...
You may, of course, find and cite your own sources - but no credible source places police among the most dangerous professions. I, for one, have always resented the damned cops for asserting that they are in a dangerous profession. They lie, and the gullible public believes them. And NONE OF YOU GIVE A DAMN ABOUT US WHO DO DANGEROUS WORK!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Read the first sentence of the article
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.
Yes. I read that afterwords. It seems to contradict the text of the legal complaint. My experience of journalists biases me to the legal complaint as probably being closer to the truth. But it's a clear contradiction between the two texts.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Bottom-rung workers should be on welfare. The alternative to working + welfare is just welfare - and that's far more corrosive to society. You can't make a person whose market value is $8/hr suddenly have a market value of $15/hr just by raising the minimum wage - you just make them unemployable. (Before you trot out the studies that show that modest increases in minimum wage don't increase unemployment, please be prepared to discuss just what qualifies as "modest", and why the results shouldn't be extrapolated to mandate a $100/hr minimum wage.)
You're just redefining what constitutes a livable wage. If you really want to live like someone in the 1950's, you can still do it quite easily on the median salary. No meals out, a house that's ~1000 square feet for a family of four (share the bedrooms and there's only one bath!), one television, no cable, one phone, one car, no air conditioning. Mom makes about half the clothes herself. Dad fixes the car whenever something goes wrong.
Back in the late nineties, I knew people who had their lives whittled down to about $8k/year in necessary expenses, and that was with air conditioning and modern cars. That's a little less than $12k today, basically right at the federal poverty line. They lived out in the boonies in trailers, but they had dial-up internet (as nearly all of us did at the time), and they were pretty happy with things the way they were.
really? you are able to NEGOTIATE with a company, these days?
in the job market now, that's really stupid. its a corporate heaven right now; those guys who are the 'job creators' (puke) are having a great time. the rest of us, we're getting by, at best.
there has to be a fair balance if there is any leverage. the only leverage she would have is to just leave. but you cannot make a company do things on threat of your leaving. that went out 20 years ago, if it even existed back then.
we're serfs and you know it. admit it. this is the world we now live in. companies fucking own us; some a little, some a lot. but things have gotton worse, not better, in terms of freedom and rights of employees.
THIS is why bosses are assholes like that guy. they are bold because they realize the imbalance of power in the current labor market.
and we've done such a great job over the past 50 years of killing the union movement, its basically only there for those that held on tight and didn't let go (oddly enough, cops have a union that 'protect' them; but regular people are not 'allowed' to have unions, since that's, uhm, somehow bad.)
no power in a weak labor market. this is what you get. blatant employer abuse.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Don't you mean, "She should have left the work phone at the office"?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This is all irrelevant. She consented to have the app running as a condition of her employment, and she removed it, and got fired. This is a simple cut and dried case.
There is an area of law that states that contracts are only enforceable if they are legal and at least somewhat fair - there are things that simply cannot be signed away, as well as those that are considered unconscionable additions that have higher scrutiny by the law in order for you to do so. For example, while it is totally legal to give up your children to another (adoption, etc.), it would never be considered legally binding if a work contract had a clause in it requiring you to. Likewise a clause requiring you to perform fellatio might be upheld in a contract for a porn star - it's part of the main focus of the job - but would never be considered a valid clause for pretty much any other job out there.
What? This was a PRIVATE employment agreement between a PRIVATE employer and a PRIVATE employee. If she doesn't like the employers terms she can find a new job. The GOVERNMENT has zero business intruding in a PRIVATE affair!
This was a demand by a Federally licensed LLC on an individual.
If the owner(s) of the LLC wants to be personally legally liable for the actions of the company, I have no problem agreeing with the sentiments in your comment. But as long as those owner(s) want special legal protection by the government, they can respect a few basic social rights.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
She sold herself only for 8 hours, she gets paid only for 8 hours. They claimed her for 24/7.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Actually, that's funny. For instance, I happen to have moved (recently) to a predominantly white suburb that boasts a very large and well rated school system.
The schools in urban baltimore spend almost twice as much per student. Adjusting for cost of living/doing business this would still leave a considerable +55% buffer on expenses. Given that the school near us boasts 15 languages with 4 yr programs and a football stadium larger than most universities, I am baffled as to what the BWI schools are spending their money on.
1. Meals?
2. Material costs due to vandalism?
3. Security procedures due to higher studentstudent violence rates?
After reading the budget and balance sheets, one of the significant differences that I noticed were property taxes... I don't have time to calculate the percentage affecting each student, but it seems ironic to find that the schools themselves are victim to the same pressures that spur some households and businesses to relocate outside the city.
Get ready for the SJWs to scream "that's raciss!" but it has NOTHING to do with money and everything to do with culture and peer pressure.
I've lived in both predominately Black and predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, what did I see? Black kids that tried to get an education and do better were "uncle toms" who were "cooning" and "acting white" and treated like shit by those around them, while those that stood on the corner acting gansta were actually chased by the opposite sex as were looked upon as being "down" with their neighborhood. The Hispanics were busting their butts to get ahead, starting their own businesses, etc, while you had "aspiring rappers" in the black neighborhood.
And its not got a damned thing to do with race, its culture. Look up the figures of Blacks straight off the boat from Africa, despite language and culture barriers they are more than 300% more likely to reach middle class in just 1 generation, and something like 1000% more likely to reach it in 2 than American Blacks. As long as American Blacks glorify violence and ignorance and condemn learning and getting ahead? Things will never change.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.