A Californian sales executive is suing her former employer, after she was fired from her job for uninstalling a mobile app designed to track her location 24 hours a day.
Myrna Arias claims that she has been wrongfully terminated from her position in money transfer company Intermex after raising questions regarding job management app Xora StreetSmart being installed on all company phones.
Marketed as a worktime monitoring tool, Xora allows employers to “see the location of every mobile worker, where they have been and where they are now”. Their website is keen to reiterate that Xora is purely a workplace tool, saying: “When your field employees start their day, they simply launch the application.”
However, this sleeper mode option was not made available to Intermex employees.
John Stubits, Intermex Manager, scolded Arias when she questioned the reasoning behind out of hours monitoring and raised concerns on employee privacy. Shortly afterwards Arias removed the app from her device and was subsequently fired from her role.
Arias’ attorney, Gail Glick, explains: “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.
“She likened the app to a prisoner’s ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion.”
Arias goes on to accuse Stubits of abusing his managerial position and the intended purpose of Xora app, making it abundantly clear that “he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time."
Arias is currently filing a lawsuit in excess of $500,000 to cover loss of earnings and future income, as well as compensation for invasion of privacy and gross business malpractice.
