Legal Question in Employment Law in California
I was employed by a company who after I had been there for about 6 months brought in a mystery shop program on the field sales staff. I was one of those field staff people. They were hired to be sure we were following guidelines, and closing sales. I found out some time later that this mystery shop program was also asked by my employer to photograph us at work with our knowledge or consent. I never signed anything that my image can be used or that my company or an outside company could take my picture. i was uncomfortable with this and one day at work on a sunday 2 young men appoached me and I did a sales presentation to them just as i would with any other customer. They carefully snapped a few photos of me while I was doing it hoping not to be seen but i saw them. these men were very rude, obnoxious to me and i did not like it at all. the next day I called my boss to tell him about the unpleasant experience I had with these soppers and he said they were not mystery shoppers. I assumed they were because of the photos. Now I felt very uncomfortable and told my boss that I was very uncomfortable and did not wish to photographed any longer while at work because I have no idea who these guys were and what they might do with the photos. he shrugged it off and the next day my boss called HR and told them I was disgruntled with them and I was looking for a lawsuit . sLong story short I was harrassed for the next 2 months. Hr called me asking me if and when I was going to resign and my boss asked for my resignation as he put it becaue I am so unhappy with my job, I loved my job and i was a top producer in the company. I was even used without additional pay to train new employees. I even have a letter praising me from the store manager where I worked most often. How is that unhappy? He equates my unhappiness with the fact that I was not promoted prior to that and yes I was disappointed but not to the point that he makes it out to be. I went for that same job back in August and I did not get it and still had an amazing 4th quarter in terms of sales. Is a company allowed to hire a third party to photograph you without your consent? is this grounds for a class action suit? I was not really looking for a lawsuit but the harrassmet got so bad that I ended up resigning last thursday. they were late getting me my final check which finally came today but still not disgruntled. I just think that it is very worng to photograph someone without their knowledge or consent. What does the law say?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Unfortunately you are completely wrong. While there are laws about photographing or recording in private areas, such as changing rooms, or recording conversations without notice, other than that employers are free to photograph, video record, audio record and in any other way observe and record employees on the job. If you don't like it you have to quit, which you did.
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