H&M unit fined for snooping on staff

Bloomberg

A Hennes & Mauritz AB unit was fined $41.4 million by a German data protection watchdog after managers trampled on the private lives of staff, storing details ranging from workers’ religious beliefs to their medical history.
“Unfortunately, we had an incident in a subsidiary in Germany that was reported to the data protection authority at the end of last year,” Chief Executive Officer Helena Helmersson said via phone.
“After reviewing this incident, it’s clear that our guidelines have not been followed.” The Swedish retailer has had a dialog with the authority and is now reviewing the decision, she said.
The privacy violations started in 2014. They included wide-ranging surveys of staff and the storing of their
private situations, such as concrete examples from people’s holidays or symptoms and medical findings for certain
illnesses.