Ikea France fined €1m for snooping on staff

A French court has ordered Ikea to pay a fine of €1m (£860,000; $1.2m) after the Swedish furniture chain was found guilty of spying on staff in France.

The former CEO of Ikea France, Jean-Louis Baillot, was given a two-year suspended jail term and €50,000 fine.

The French subsidiary was found to have used private detectives and police officers to collect private data on staff. Evidence came to light in 2012.

Stung by the affair, Ikea fired four managers and got a new code of conduct.

The 15 people in the dock at the Versailles court included top executives and former store managers.

Four police officers were also on trial for handing over confidential information.

The mass surveillance system was used by store managers to vet job applicants, as well as checking up on their staff.

Ikea's annual bill for private investigators ran to as much as €600,000, AFP news agency reports, citing court documents.

In one case, AFP reports, the company's former head of risk wanted to know how an employee could afford a new BMW convertible; he also inquired why a staff member in Bordeaux had "suddenly become a protester".

That executive, Jean-François Paris, was given an 18-month suspended sentence and a €10,000 fine.

Hundreds of staff targeted
The prosecution had called for a €2m fine for Ikea and for Baillot to spend a year in prison, along with a further two years suspended.

The case centred on Ikea France's surveillance of staff during 2009-2012. The scandal was exposed by journalists, then trade unions took legal action.

The illegal surveillance covered about 400 people, state prosecutor Pamela Tabardel said.

"What's at stake is the protection of our private lives against the threat of mass surveillance," she said when the trial opened in March.

Managers were found to have used a private security firm, Eirpace, which in turn collected personal data from the police. It included information about lifestyles and any previous criminal convictions.

The Eirpace boss, Jean-Pierre Fourès, was given a two-year suspended sentence and a €20,000 fine.

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When the trial opened, Ikea France issued a statement saying it "strongly condemned" 
the privacy violations and it apologised for "this situation which does 
serious harm to the company's values and ethical standards".A lawyer for Ikea, Emmanuel Daoud, told AFP that the court had delivered "many acquittals", having "taken account of the efforts made by Ikea France". The firm had reformed its governance and set up an ethics committee, he noted.

The French daily Le Monde described how the spying worked at the Ikea store in Avignon.

Store manager Patrick Soavi told the court how he had got personal data from a cousin in the police.

"I recognise that I was very naïve and rather over-zealous, but we were being asked to carry out these checks, and once I'd put a foot inside this system it was too late," he said.

He asked the policeman, Alain Straboni, to "cast an eye" over 49 candidates selected for Ikea jobs.

After a search on the police computer the reply was that three of them had committed minor offences.

Later Mr Soavi sent another 68 names to be checked, and he was advised to drop five of the candidates.The French subsidiary of Ikea will go on trial on Monday over allegations that it snooped on employees and customers by using private detectives and police officers.

Ikea France will be tried as a corporate entity alongside several of its former executives.

Prosecutors say Ikea France set up a "spying system" across its operations.

The 15 people in the dock include top executives such as former CEO Stefan Vanoverbeke, and former store managers.

Four police officers are also on trial for handing over confidential information.

Ikea has already fired four executives over the scandal and put in place a new code of conduct. However, the company still faces a fine of up to €3.75 million ($4.5 million).

The allegations first came to light in 2012 after an Ikea insider leaked emails between the company and a security company to the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné.

The emails suggested that the firm was seeking access to records about its staff and customers from a police database holding millions of names and the personal information of criminals, victims and even witnesses.

Two unions filed complaints against Ikea, accusing the company of spying on hundreds of employees and customers.

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The court is investigating the period between 2009 and 2012, but prosecutors say practices in France started nearly a decade earlier.

Jean-Francois Paris, Ikea France's former director of risk management, is accused of sending lists of names to be investigated to private investigators. The bill for these investigations could have been up to €600,000, according to court documents seen by the AFP news agency.

Mr Paris has said his department was responsible for handling the payments for investigations.

One staff member "who used to be a model employee, but has suddenly become a protester" was investigated over concerns they could become "a risk of eco-terrorism", according to emails sent by Mr Paris.

The charges against the defendants include illegal gathering of personal information, receiving illegally gathered personal information, and violating professional confidentiality. The charges carry prison terms of up to 10 years.