Арбитр разрешил использовать данные GPS и записи с фитнес-приложений в качестве доказательств кражи рабочего времени

City worker accused of time theft over lunch breaks An arbitrator has ruled that GPS trackers in company vehicles and posts on a personal fitness app can be fair game in a workplace investigation, upholding an employer's evidence in a dispute over an employee's long lunch breaks. In a decision dated Aug. 19, 2026, arbitrator Christopher Foy ruled in Coquitlam (City) v. Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 386 that the City of Coquitlam could rely on GPS vehicle data and Strava running posts to investigate time theft by a union member. Foy found just cause to discipline the worker but ruled termination excessive, ordering reinstatement without back pay. GPS records clear bar for admissible evidence A member of the public's complaint about a city vehicle parked for hours outside a residential building set the case in motion. That complaint led investigators to another employee's excessive gym visits, then to a five-person tree maintenance crew that included the worker at the centre of this case. The city pulled GPS records for the arborist covering roughly six months, from May through October 2025. The union argued the GPS evidence should be excluded because the city gave no notice under British Columbia's freedom of information law before collecting his location data. Foy disagreed, finding that a decal posted inside city vehicles, combined with policy training dating to 2014, met the notice requirement, and noted arbitrators have broad discretion under the Labour Relations Code to accept evidence that would not be admissible in a courtroom. Foy also rejected arguments that the data was unreliable, pointing to recent case law establishing that GPS tracking is now widely accepted as trustworthy evidence. He described the city's decision to access the records once suspicion arose as a reasonable exercise of the City’s right to use the GPS data for investigative purposes. The city cross-referenced the records against work-order logs and found no service calls tied to the worker's extended stops on 14 separate dates. Fitness app posts and privacy The city's investigation also drew on the worker's use of Strava, a fitness tracking app he used to log lunchtime runs. He shared some runs with about 18 followers, including city colleagues, and posted others publicly, at times labelling them in ways that referenced his work crew. A second union objection centred on how a manager involved in the investigation shared some of the worker's posts with a colleague outside the core investigative team. Foy found nothing improper in that disclosure, accepting testimony that senior management needed to be kept informed, and noting no evidence anyone had accessed the posts without authorization. Foy concluded the worker had no real expectation of privacy in the Strava data he had posted to followers and the public, since nothing restricted those posts from being viewed or shared further. The Strava records were accepted alongside the GPS data as evidence supporting the city's time theft investigation. Firing ruled excessive Under the standard test that arbitrators use for discipline cases, Foy found just cause, accepting evidence the worker exceeded his permitted break time by 1,762 minutes, or nearly 29 hours, across 14 dates over roughly six months. He rejected the union's push to lower that figure, ruling the scale of the shortfall did not change the seriousness of the conduct. Weighing whether the firing was excessive, Foy pointed to the worker's roughly 14 years of service, a genuine apology he found credible both during the investigation and at the hearing, and strong prospects for future good behaviour. Those factors outweighed aggravating ones, including a prior two-day suspension and the largely unsupervised nature of the role, leading Foy to conclude termination went too far. Foy ordered the worker reinstated to his field arborist position effective Sept. 8, 2026, without back pay or loss of seniority, in place of a five-day suspension the union had proposed. He also dismissed a separate union claim that the city had breached the worker's privacy rights, finding no such violation occurred.