A Chinese company has come under fire for installing surveillance cameras in the restroom too see which employees spent too much time on bathroom breaks and posting offenders on ‘wall of shame’.

Many Chinese companies have long been trying to discourage workers from spending too much time in the restroom by various means, like installing countdown timers on bathroom stalls or limiting bathrooms breaks to one per day. A Shenzen-based tech company took things even further by reportedly installing hidden surveillance cameras in its restrooms to monitor employees’ activity and then shaming those who wasted too much time there by posting screenshots of them for everyone to see. A spokesperson for the Lixun Electro-Acoustic Technology Company admitted that employees were surveilled in the company restroom, but claimed that the measure was meant to discourage time wasting during work hours.

Chinese news outlet was the first to report Lixun Electro-Acoustic’s controversial method of dealing with bathroom breaks, writing that the company not only monitored its staff’s restroom activities but also shamed employees who smoked, played video games or simply wasted too much time during their bathroom breaks by posting stills of them on a “wall of shame”.

“The staff were spending too much time in the bathroom smoking or playing games, which made other staff uncomfortable,” the Chinese company explained. “Smoking in the bathroom is prohibited and the purpose is to prevent people from staying in the bathroom for long periods of time due to video games and other activities.”

The company’s behavior sparked outrage on Chinese social media, with many users accusing it of infring ing on its employees privacy and even breaking the law, but the truth is that such practices aren’t new in China. A few years back, we covered a similar story about a technology company in Xiamen, Fujian Province, which also used surveillance cameras to monitor activity in its restrooms and discourage long bathroom breaks.