TheQuartering [7/30/2021]
An IT worker filmed people using the restroom.
In 2018, a former Activision Blizzard IT worker installed cameras in the company’s Minnesota office bathroom with the intent to spy on employees while they used the toilet, according to court records reviewed by Waypoint and local media reports from the time.
The employee, Tony Ray Nixon, pleaded guilty to “Interference with Privacy,” a gross misdemeanor, and was given a suspended prison sentence; he later allegedly violated his parole requiring him to take “sex offender treatment as directed.” Nixon worked for Activision Blizzard in Eden Prairie Minnesota, where the company maintains a building that focuses on quality assurance.
According to court documents, police learned that Activision Blizzard had a problem when a male employee showed up in the lobby of the police department on August 23, 2018 at 10:47 p.m. The employee, who is anonymous in the court documents, “stated that he received an e-mail from Human Resources that an unauthorized monitoring device had been installed in the unisex bathrooms and that Activision was doing an internal investigation.” It is unclear from the documents whether this employee was formally acting on behalf of Activision the company or if they were independently reporting a crime at work, however, Activision said in a statement to Waypoint that it “notified the authorities.”