Karlee Besse, a Canadian woman who worked remotely as an accountant for Reach CPA, was instructed by a civil tribunal to reimburse her former employer for “time theft” after she was caught taking on wrong working hours by a controversial tracking software.
A civil tribunal, which is part of Canada’s judicial system, ruled that Besse owes her former employer $2,756 after software installed on her laptop revealed she lied about working more than 50 hours per week. Besse had initially sued her employer for wrongful termination, seeking $5000 in damages. Reach CPA, on the other hand, revealed in court that they had been tracking their employees’ actions using TimeCamp, which collects information on how employees spend their time.
Her employer claimed that Besse was rightfully fired because she committed time theft. Reach CPA stated that it gathered evidence using TimeCamp, which is time-tracking software that records which files are accessed and for how long. The records revealed a 50-hour difference between what Besse reported as time worked and what TimeCamp logged as work activity.
Besse countered that she found the program difficult to use and that she couldn’t get the software to distinguish between work and personal use of her work laptop, which both parties agreed her employer permitted during staff off-hours.
The sources for this piece include an article in CBSNews.