Ikea’s France division that is into the business of selling furniture and home needs is in news for all wrong reasons. The retail giant’s two former employees will face a legal suit for conducting espionage on its employees and a few of its customers.
Highly placed sources say that Ikea used to gather information about its employees from the law enforcement agencies for doing background checks and see their history in breaching government rules.
Also, the company is said to be indulging in fraudulent tactics of checking the background of its customers who had disputes with Ikea.
Cybersecurity Insiders has learnt that the Swiss-based furniture retailer was indulging in such practices since 2011 and a lawsuit was filed against it by a few of the employees and customers in 2021.
Going forward, the company took up severe action against those belonging to senior management, indulging in illegal use of information related to employees and customers. The company also fired 4 of its employees and changed its internal policies after trade unions accused the company of indulging in malpractices of collecting personal information of employees from its branches operating worldwide.
Jean Francis Paris, who heads the Ikea France’s Risk Management Department, acknowledged the judges based in France that 530,000 Euros a year was earmarked by the company to go through these investigations.
If convicted Ikea former CEO Baillot, CFO Dariusz Rychert and Stefan Vanoverbeke could face a penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 750,000 Euros. The store might also face a penalty of 3.75 million Euros for breaching the laws of GDPR.
Note- Ikea happens to employee over 10,000 people across 34 stores operating in France and the count might rise by 10 fold if its global employee strength is considered.
