(Newswire.net — May 12, 2015) — Kern County, CA. – A California woman filed a lawsuit against her former employer claiming he fired her because she refused constant monithoring of her whereabouts, 24 hrs per day.
Myrna Arias said the company let her go shortly after she disabled GPS locator app in her iPhone. The app was used to monitor employees even on their personal time, the lawsuit alleged.
According to the lawsuit filed in Kern County Superior Court, Arias has claimed that her boss, John Stubits, at money transfer service Intermex in Bakersfield boasted about monitoring employees’ locations while they were not on the job.
Arias said she “met all quotas” during her time with Intermex as a sales executive. After she uninstalled Xora, a mandatory job-management app that was applied to company phones, she was fired, Arias claim in a lawsuit.
“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, Arias said, adding that she had no problem with the app’s GPS function during work hours, however, she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours.
Arias said she complained to Stubits that 24/7 monitoring is illegal and represent an invasion of her privacy. Stubits, however, replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion,” she said.
Among other accusations, the suit alleged invasion of privacy, retaliation, and unfair business practices.
“This intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person,” the lawsuit claimed.
Arias’ attorney admited the application is intrusive, however, he defended that the app is mandatory.
“The app had a ‘clock in/out’ feature which did not stop GPS monitoring, that function remained on,” Gail Glick said.
According to a report, this is the problem about which Ms. Arias complained. Reportedly, the company management would tell her co-workers and her of their driving speed, roads taken, and time spent at customer locations, but not the mileage.
Arias manager, however, made it clear that he was using the program to “continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time.”
Arias is seeking damages in excess of $500,000. Intermex did not immediately respond to a comment requested by Ars Technica.