A Chinese company has come under fire for installing surveillance cameras above the toilet booths so it could monitor employees during their toilet breaks.
Toilet use during work hours has been a controversial topic in China for quite a while now.
In the past, there have been incidents where companies cut employee salaries for spending too much time in the toilet, others that fined workers for using the toilet more than once a day, and even a company that installed timers on its toilet booths.
But none of those examples even come close to the “solution” of one technology company in the Fujian Province, which reportedly installed cameras above the booths of its employee bathrooms to monitor phone use during bathroom breaks.
Photos captured from the footage of the bathroom cameras recently made their way on Chinese social media, where they quickly went viral. It wasn’t long until someone recognized the background as the bathroom of China Aviation Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd. in Xiamen, a state-owned company specializing in the production of lithium batteries.
After the photos went viral and news agencies started contacting China Aviation Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd. for clarification, the company came out with a statement, admitting that the leaked photos had been recorded by its surveillance system.
However, it added that the cameras had only been installed this year, with the sole purpose of monitoring smoking in the company toilet.