IT Home On November 7, according to a report by CCTV Finance today, Ms. Wu worked as a legal officer at an insurance company. In July 2024, in order to optimize her work process and improve the efficiency of PPT production and data analysis, she compiled and processed the company’s audit data tables on her own and uploaded them to a third-party AI platform recommended by department leaders and direct supervisors to assist with office work. Unexpectedly, one month later, she was dismissed from her job by the company on the grounds of “serious violation of information security and related regulations.”
Ms. Wu applied for an arbitration request to the Beijing Chaoyang District Labor and Personnel Dispute Arbitration Committee. After deliberation, the court concluded that Ms. Wu had no subjective intention to disclose company secrets, and it was not sufficient to determine that she had seriously violated work discipline, thus requiring the termination of the labor relationship.
Finally, the court ruled: to revoke the "Labor Contract Termination Notice" issued by the insurance company to Ms. Wu, and to continue performing the labor contract; to pay various amounts such as the salary loss and the difference in year-end bonuses to Ms. Wu, totalingforty-six thousand more than fifty yuan. The insurance company appealed against the first-instance judgment, but the second-instance court dismissed the appeal and upheld the original decision. The judgment has now taken effect.
According to information obtained from IT Home, the evidence shows that although the insurance company has established a confidentiality system, information security management regulations, and signed confidentiality agreements with employees, none of its internal rules explicitly prohibit employees from using third-party AI tools to assist in work. There are also no special compliance rules or operating guidelines for AI-based working scenarios, nor have any specialized training programs been offered on the use of AI tools.
The court also noted that the company failed to provide evidence that the files uploaded by Ms. Wu are classified as legally or institutionally defined core confidential information, and it was unable to prove that such actions resulted in actual consequences such as information leakage, financial losses, or damage to reputation. Simply assuming a risk of data leakage based on general rules for data retention on AI platforms is not sufficient to conclude that the employee’s behavior constitutes a “serious violation of regulations.”