IKEA fined $1.2 million for designing a French employee monitoring system

Recently, according to the BBC report, a French court fined the French subsidiary of Swedish furniture giant IKEA $1.2 million for illegally monitoring 400 customers and employees. According to the BBC, the prosecutor said that the company had illegally monitored about 400 people in total.

Former Ikea France CEO Jean-Louis Baillot was also fined 50,000 euros for storing personal data and sentenced to two years probation by a French court. According to the reports, more than a dozen people have been tried for espionage plans, including four police officers accused of surrendering confidential records and a former CEO of IKEA France.

This furniture sales subsidiary was convicted of operating an illegal business between 2009 and 2012, which involved hiring a private security company, Eirpace,  to uncover taint from its employees and opponents. A store manager, Patrick Soavi, described to the court how he asked a cousin of a police officer to “cast an eye” 49 job applicants. Later, he provided 68 names for illegal background checks. Eirpace CEO Jean-Pierre Fourès was also sentenced by a French court to two years of probation and a fine of 20,000 euros .

In response, IKEA France’s legal team stated that there was no general espionage within the company, and the subsidiary issued a statement stating that it had “implemented a major action plan to prevent this from happening again.”