Office worker discovers company is secretly tracking his location after they force every employee to download a ‘timekeeping’ app, quits and takes half of the company with him: ‘They never fully recovered’

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Jul 17, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

It's already weird how every single app you download asks for your location. Like, I'm downloading an app that adds a picture of my dog to every photo I want, why do you need to know where I am when I'm doing this? It's also annoying and weird when your job, that has nothing to do with tech, makes you download an app on your personal device. What's your angle here? Ya know?

 

That's the exact instinct this guy had when his job made everyone download a "timekeeping" app. Nobody know that the app was tracking them 24-7, even when it wasn't open. This guy only put the pieces together after a sick day…

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  • He had called out due to illness and went to the pharmacy to grab some meds. While he was there, he got an angry message from his boss accusing him of playing hooky because he wasn't home right now. He was very confused and when it finally dawned on him, he immediately called out the company. He also quit and threatened to sue. He didn't need to sue, but the company still never recovered from this little shady move, because half of the company left when they found out… 

  • Cheezburger Image 10529904384
    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "I worked for a company that had [this] rule.

    This company had office workers as well as workers in the field. One day they decided to introduce a new phone app to install onto our
    via TXquilter1
  • personal phones so employees could clock in and out from our phones. no matter our location. Now my position was in the office, and I already had a slight issue with the company using my
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  • personal phone for timekeeping especially considering the company rules, but I figured whatever, it's not a big deal. That changed when I called in sick one day. I went to a Walmart
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  • pharmacy to pick up a prescription and received a call from my boss accusing me of playing hooky because I was out shopping. I was caught completely off guard and thought maybe another
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  • coworker had seen me and called my boss? I explained to my boss. that I was picking up a prescription but as long as I was not on the clock, my actions were my own business. Then I thought
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  • more about it and when I got home, I checked and realized that the timekeeping app was tracking my location in the background and never once notified me of such. I nearly lost it right.
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  • then and there. I went into the office the next day and asked my boss. about it and she admitted that she tracked the field employees on a daily basis. Well clearly it wasn't JUST the field
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  • employees. Now luckily we happen to have a lawyer in the family and when I informed her of what just went down over the past couple of days, she wanted to start a class action including all
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  • of the employees. I didn't go that route because too many people needed their job, but we did send them two letters.
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  • 1. First letter was my resignation with a clause for no contact with me in any form except through my lawyer and a requirement that they not deny
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  • Cheezburger Image 10529911552
    via Unsplash+ (and Vitaly Gariev)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • my application for unemployment as well as demand for payment of several months of phone costs due to company use.
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  • (Invoice copies attached). 2. The second letter was a breach of privacy letter with specific demands to settle and avoid a lawsuit.
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  • They had to send every employee, myself included, a sincere apology letter informing them of the location tracking and admitting that they physically accessed their locations
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  • on a daily basis unbeknownst to them, with a paragraph informing them about the breach and privacy invasion laws in our state. It included another paragraph stating that
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  • they would not dispute any unemployment claims should the employee decide to leave the company within the next 30 days. In the end, over 1/2 of the
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  • employees left the company and one employee did actually sue them. (Not sure of the outcome). This severely impacted the day to day operations and they lost several
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  • clients due to lack of staffing. So even though I didn't. sue them, I impacted their business in a major
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  • way and they never fully recovered. They went out of business the following year.
    via TXquilter1
  • SWANDAMARM That's crazy and its good to hear becausei was just telling my buddy how I had a company try to get me to download their app to my personal Phone and When I refused they were appalled like no one have ever denied their request they said they'd get back to me.
    via SWANDAMARM
  • I told them that if they wanted me to have a phone with their app, they could provide me a work phone, and they told me that's why they reimbursed for phone plans. I told them I was comfortable paying my own bill and when they finally got back to me they said I didn't have to download the app if I didn't want to but I
    via SWANDAMARM
  • immediate started looking for a new job and that was on day 1 of a new company. No one can make me do anything with my own property. I sold this company my time not access to my personal belongings. My instant seemed to have served me right based on your example
    via SWANDAMARM

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