Using the toilet during working hours is a controversial topic in China for a long time, as one company resorted several months ago to cut salaries for employees to spend too much time in the toilet, and other companies fined workers for using the toilet more than once a day, up to the Chinese company that It has installed timers in its toilet stalls, but none of these examples even come close to the “solution” offered by a technology company in Xiamen, Fujian Province, which reportedly installed cameras over its employees’ bathroom stalls to monitor phone use during breaks in the toilet.

Pictures taken from bathroom cam footage recently appeared on Chinese social media, where it quickly went viral. It wasn’t long before someone recognized the background as a company bathroom in Xiamen, a state-owned company specializing in the production of lithium batteries. , according to the site oddity central.

The pictures circulating on the Internet also included “corrective measures” allegedly proposed by the Human Resources Department, and the site indicates that two employees were fired, the third was punished and their monthly performance score was reduced to zero.

After the photos went viral and news agencies started calling the company for clarification, the company came out with a statement acknowledging that the leaked photos had been recorded by its monitoring system, but added that the cameras were installed this year only for the purpose of monitoring smoking in the company’s toilet.

It is true that two of the people in the photos appear to have lit cigarettes in their hands, but then again, they were all using their smartphones as well, however, the explanation did not calm the social media goers.

Regardless of the company’s motives, for the vast majority of the public, installing surveillance cameras in toilet stalls was simply unacceptable.

Reports have been raised about opening an investigation into the case, but legal experts claim the company needs to be held accountable. Installing cameras in non-public places of restrooms seriously violates employee privacy.