IKEA: Cameras were hidden in the ceiling above warehouse toilets for 'health and safety'
- Reference: 1633094889
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/10/01/ikea_spycam_scandal/
- Source link:
Workers at the Swedish flat-pack furniture giant were concerned that they may have been spied on while in the bathroom.
The discovery was made last week when the lights were switched off. A member of staff spotted what appeared to be a small red light between the panels of a suspended ceiling. When they investigated, they found the hidden camera.
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When they looked further, they found a number of other cameras above both the men's and ladies' toilets.
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One worker [4]told the Peterborough Telegraph : "They were not wireless cameras, there is a whole network of cable."
IKEA admitted they had been in place since 2015. The company did not say when they were last used.
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While some reports have suggested a link between the cameras and the vicinity with the toilets, IKEA claims they were placed there for another purpose.
In a statement, a spokesperson for IKEA told The Register : "Peterborough Distribution Centre is a large warehouse facility where forklift trucks and HGVs are in regular operation.
"In support of our health and safety policy, we have a drugs testing policy in place as per industry standards.
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"The installation of the cameras in 2015 was to detect alleged activity that could have resulted in serious injury to co-workers, and to maintain a high level of safety on-site.
[7]UK MoD data strategy calls for social media surveillance on behalf of 'local authorities'
[8]California Governor signs bill protecting warehouse workers from unsafe quotas
[9]UK's Surveillance Commissioner warns of 'ethically fraught' facial recognition tech concerns
[10]It's bizarre we're at a point where reports are written on how human rights trump AI rights
"The cameras were only ever intended to film activity in the roof space or corridors."
It has now confirmed that all the cameras have been removed and it is carrying out an investigation into the matter.
Staff are now reportedly considering legal action.
A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said the body has not received a complaint on the matter.
Declining to be drawn on the specifics of the case, it told us: "Recording images of any identifiable individuals through CCTV cameras needs to be done in line with data protection law.
"In areas where people expect a high level of privacy, such as changing rooms or toilet areas, CCTV should only be used in the most exceptional circumstances where it is necessary to deal with very serious concerns. In these cases, organisations must inform people when a CCTV is in operation and that appropriate restrictions on viewing and disclosing images are in place."
In July, ICO officers [11]raided two homes in Southern England after pictures of former health secretary Matt Hancock kissing a colleague appeared in British newspaper The Sun .
The images were taken from what appeared to be CCTV footage from within the Department of Health and Social Care in London.
Following publication, Hancock resigned after admitting a breach of social distancing rules. ®
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[4] https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/people/ikea-launch-investigation-after-outraged-staff-find-cctv-cameras-in-toilets-in-peterborough-3398634
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/30/mod_data_strategy_social_media_surveillance/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/23/california_warehouse_amazon/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/21/uk_surveillance_commissioner_facial_recog_warning/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/16/human_rights_ai/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/15/ico_matt_hancock_raids/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Excuses, excuses
It's to be able to record people taking cocaine in the toilets........ but it's only to record people in the roof space and corridor.
Re: Excuses, excuses
At the very least, any/all who approved putting them in, should be fired.
There's something fundamentally wrong with that company's psychology. Obvious to the public with their maze entrapment configuration.
Re: Excuses, excuses
IKEA would be better off claiming "A perv did it!"'
Disgusting!!
how could they state that installing cameras in a toilet void is part of health and safety to record people doing drugs?
Why would people do drugs in a ceiling void.
what else have they got? are there microphones in toilets too just in case they can listen to people talking about or doing drugs?
Re: Disgusting!!
Possibly they thought or had heard drugs were being concealed in the ceiling void. Maybe linked to their test and inspection routines - risk of a body or locker search? Nip to the loo to hide your stash.
But totally a shit thing to do.
Re: Disgusting!!
Certainly their reputation is down the toilet.
Re: Disgusting!!
Clearly some fundamental comprehension defect, when cameras in the toilets come from "We need to get to the bottom(s) of this."
Re: Disgusting!!
That never ceases to amaze me - they never address why workers take drugs... Maybe if the job wasn't so crap, they wouldn't have to alter their reality to accept it.
Re: Disgusting!!
Nah, it's for recording the impact of cloacal sucesses, they were going to play an in house version of 'celebrity shit in a bucket' at the staff Christmas party for a laff. Sweden HR got to hear about it and nixed the wheeze, Some fool forgot to remove the cameras...
Safety
Is a weasel word to excuse any bad behaviour lately. When people are going to see through this?
Re: Safety
Let's add National Security to that list...
Odd article. The end bit about Hancock...? WTF?!
Especially when there was a Spanish judge today who ruled CCTV in public areas that recorded women urinating and subsequent footage was released on porn sites was not to be investigated because there was no expectation of privacy on a public road (back street).
The "regulator" problem. Instead of laws being thrashed out in detail in the democracy with courts precedence thrashing out anything they missed in public. A bloke in an office ("the regulator") asked his drinking buddies how to rule on a case by case basis.
Hancock being a ridiculous "his privacy was violated by being recording in a public space" false negative. The regulator obviously wanted to please the group that employs him, which is never a good thing.
There's zero doubt here what should happen, even Ikea clearly know they're in the wrong and are bullshitting and backtracking, but I don't think Ikea managers homes will be raided, because Ikea is big and the regulator is a small man in a small office, thankful for his easy money.
The situation in the UK is not good, not good in any sense.
(playing devil's advocate here a bit)
It's down to the expectation of privacy. In an office, you would expect your colleagues to potentially see what you're doing, but not the general public. Releasing CCTV in that situation to the public/media would be breaching the expected level of privacy.
If he'd happened to have had sex in the office and caught on camera doing so, would we all have the right to gawp at his exposed rear end? It's different if the behaviour happens on the street.
If you believe Hancock was recorded in a public space I suggest you walk in there and have a try at how public it is ...
From a regulation perspective it is entirely the same thing with a significant difference in how it came to light. In Ikea someone found a camera but (for now) no proof of abuse, in Hancock's case there was obviously "abuse" from a privacy perspective as it was only discovered after publication in a tabloid. If someone would have posted pictures of Ikea employees on the toilet doing something unbecoming there had been a significant chance of a raid too.
El Reg is sadly obsessed with shoe-horning in any anti-Tory nonsense that it can nowadays.
I didn't pick up any anti-Tory vibe, just a desire to find any related article to mention. I think the Hancock thing really doesn't fall into the same ballpark even. There are far more relevant incidents already reported.
El Reg doesn't need to shoe-horn in anti-Tory stuff, they do that for themselves...
Ah, the Spanish judicial system, the same that consider a gang rape a simple case of harassment because the woman did not fought back (as if she could...), the same that consider violently storming a political act with physical aggression a case of freedom of speech as long as the perpetrators are right-winged and the attacked left-winged, the same that consider sneezing at the national flag an offense worth of a prison sentence... yeah, good example you picked up of "justice"
Picked as an example of a recent CCTV story, not justice.
warehouse in Peterborough, England
presumably, this is the only Ikea warehouse in the whole of the UK eh? And the only Ikea store? Oh, btw, I'd check customer toilets too, cause you know, those rogue Ikea engineering, roaming (pre-brexit) round the continent, breaking into Ikea stores and warehouses, installing those (never connected) cams and mikes! Like hell's grannies, wild and totally out of control!
Where were they pointing?
I've read a few articles on this and none of them have confirmed where the cameras were actually pointed.
Was it horizontally in the crawl space with no view of below, or pointing down at the cubicles/rest of toilet area?
One of those is a non-story, the other a big deal.
Re: Where were they pointing?
I think the fact that the stories don't tell you tells you everything you need to know.
Re: Where were they pointing?
Given that the red light on the camera was visible from below, and that red lights on CCTV cameras tend to be on the front of the camera... I suspect the camera was pointing roughly in the direction from which the light was observed (or at least, a lot nearer to that than the opposite direction). I doubt the light would be sufficiently noticeable from the side of the camera, or significantly below it.
Meanwhile in the IKEA bathroom....
Old school before CCTV was cheap and discreet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p74Gfvg5Rgg
Excuses, excuses
Installing the cameras in 2015 is recent enough for some serious data protection legislation to have been violated. The 'excuse' that is was done concerning drug use in an establishment that has fork-lift trucks and other heavy machinery is no good. When my former company wanted to install CCTV cameras to record who was stealing laptops from the IT team that built them and sent them out, they needed the police to approve them as essential to an ongoing police investigation. You cannot just install cameras on the off-chance that illegal activity by your staff might be recorded.
This sounds like a criminal act to me.