Apple unfairly canned an employee at its London headquarters who took secret photos of a female colleague and shared them with other staff, a judge has ruled, reports The Telegraph (a subscription is required to read the article).
Process analyst Christoph Sieberer took two photos of a woman and shared them with a male colleague who was said to have a crush on her at Apple’s London Battersea site. That colleague, reported only as “Thomas,” later showed one of the images to another woman at Apple, who told her manager. Following an investigation, Apple dismissed both Thomas and Sieberer for sexual harassment.
However, The Telegraph says a UK Employment Tribunal has ruled that Apple fired Sieberer unfairly. Judge N. Walker said that “there were no reasonable grounds” for the dismissal, and there was no evidence that anyone who saw the photos had been offended. Which seems to me to be a weird ruling, but Walker said while taking the photos was “arguably an invasion of privacy… this is a world in which there are cameras in all sorts of locations.”
The ruling does say that the photographs should not have been taken. Apple will now have to pay damages of an amount that the tribunal will set at a future date.
Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today
