Chetu, a Florida-based company must pay a remote worker $73,000 for wrongful termination. 

The software development company has over 2,800 software developers working on its current contracts. Most are remote workers.

Webcam dispute

The Dutch court ruled for the virtual employee who lives in the Netherlands. It decided that requiring an employee to leave their webcam on is an intrusion of privacy rights. And was "not legally valid."

Court documents confirm that Chetu must pay its former employee €50,000 (USD 48,500) in fair compensation. Along with €2,700 (USD $2,600) for unpaid salary. An added penalty of €8,373.13 (USD 8,126) for wrongful termination, and previous unpaid holiday allowance.

The employee who wasn't named in the suit had been with Chetu since 2019.

The company told the worker on August 23rd that webcams must be left on all day for the virtual training program.

The employee refused to say he didn't "feel comfortable being monitored for 9 hours a day by a camera." 

 "This is an invasion of my privacy and makes me feel really uncomfortable," he told the company. "That's the reason why my camera isn't on."

According to court documents on August 26, the remote employee was fired for “insubordination” and "refusal to work."  

Remote worker privacy rights issue

The remote worker explained to the court that he was working, and the company knew it. The company could monitor his activities on his laptop. And he was also screen-sharing. 

The case was filed in the Netherlands, where the remote worker was based, He claimed he wasn't given an "urgent reason" to "justify the immediate dismissal given," And that Chetu did not have the right to demand he keep his webcam on since it violated his privacy rights.

The court ruled "The employer has not made it clear enough about the reasons for the dismissal. Moreover, there has been no evidence of a refusal to work, nor has there been any reasonable instruction." 

The Dutch court also cited Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which says, "strict conditions are attached to observing employees." And referred to a European Court of Human Rights judgment in 2017 "that video surveillance of an employee in the workplace, be it covert or not, must be considered as a considerable intrusion into the employee's private life." 

Chetu’s employment contract has an “at will” clause. It means that an employee can quit or be fired at any time, for almost any reason. The clause was not enforced.