Starbucks May Have to Train Employees Not to Videotape Customers in Bathrooms

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 12:41AM EST · Published Apr 22, 6:47AM EDT

Starbucks May Have to Train Employees Not to Videotape Customers in Bathrooms — © courtesy of Starbucks Corp.

On the heels of ugly accusations of racial profiling by a Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) worker in Philadelphia and plans to train workers nationwide to prevent the behavior in the future, Starbucks may need to undertake another sort of training altogether.

Employees should not videotape customers in Starbucks bathrooms

According to Fox 5 in Atlanta:

A woman discovered a hidden recording device in a Starbucks bathroom Tuesday morning, according to the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety.

“She found it taped to the bottom of the baby changing station which is located directly in front of the toilet seat,” Officer Howard Miller said.

Officers said the 25-year-old woman snatched the hidden camera off the wall and immediately told a Starbucks supervisor before calling the police.

“We’ve learned that the device had about an hours worth of recorded video on it and detectives found 8 to 10 men and women videotaped while in that restroom,” Officer Miller said.

[nativounit]

Additionally, Fox News reports:

Police have launched an investigation after a camera was discovered last week inside a restroom at a Starbucks store in an Atlanta suburb.

Starbucks does not need a second round of nationwide news coverage about employee practices, even if they were isolated to one store. The question is bound to arise about whether this happened in other Starbucks stores, which then may set off an internal investigation as to whether the practice is broad-based.

Starbucks appears to have dodged a loss of customers after the Philadelphia racial-profiling incident. Video cameras in bathrooms add to the impression Starbucks does not adequately look out for its customers.

[recirclink id=457748]

[wallst_email_signup]

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.