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Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

Asturias court rules a security guard's 2023 dismissal unfair after a client replaced on-site guarding with AI cameras and patrols, La Razón reports

According to La Razón's account of a July 2024 judgment of the High Court of Justice of Asturias, Duro Felguera replaced the continuous on-site guarding provided by the contractor Protectum with a Securitas service that, from 1 August 2023, combined cameras with artificial intelligence for video analysis, roving patrols and alarm response. The guards of the outgoing contract were left out of the new one. Protectum ended a guard's employment on 31 July 2023. The court held that Securitas did not have to take him on because the new service was different, declared the dismissal unfair and ordered Protectum to pay him €30,672.72 in compensation plus processing wages. La Razón notes that human guards still intervened in the new service and that the presence of AI was part of the reorganisation without making the dismissal lawful.

AI system
Unidentified AI video-analysis system
Occurred
31 Jul 2023
Reported
9 October 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Relation unknown
Reported harm
Professional Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Work · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
4 claims: 4 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Cameras with artificial intelligence for video analysis, installed by Securitas as part of a remote-monitoring, roving-patrol and alarm-response service that replaced continuous on-site guarding; no product is named

What Happened

The switch. La Razón reports that Duro Felguera contracted a new security service with Securitas on 1 August 2023. Until then Protectum had provided continuous on-site guarding priced by contracted hours. According to the proven facts of the judgment as described by the newspaper, Securitas replaced 95% of the previous system, installed new cameras and added cameras with artificial intelligence for video analysis. A guard covered several client sites in the area; when the systems detected an alarm, an operator at Securitas's operations centre in Madrid reviewed the images and sent the nearest guard. The new contract was cheaper and no longer depended on hours of physical presence, and Securitas staffed it with its own personnel without new hires.

The dismissal and the ruling. The guards of the previous contract were left out of the new one. Protectum ended the claimant guard's contract on 31 July 2023. A Gijón labour court first held Securitas responsible for not taking him on. On appeal, the High Court of Justice of Asturias held that the new service did not keep the identity of the old one, so the sector agreement's transfer obligation did not apply to Securitas, and placed liability on Protectum: the dismissal was declared unfair and the guard, who had opted to end the employment relationship with compensation, was awarded €30,672.72 plus processing wages.

Limits. The newspaper states that human intervention continued in the new service and that the presence of AI formed part of the established reorganisation without making the dismissal lawful. The report does not say what the AI cameras detected or how much of the reduction in on-site guarding they accounted for, and the judgment itself was not available.

Reported harm

According to La Razón's account of the judgment, the guard lost his job when the client replaced continuous on-site guarding with a service built on AI video-analysis cameras, roving patrols and alarm response; the court declared the dismissal unfair and awarded him €30,672.72 plus processing wages against his former employer. Other guards of the outgoing contract were also left out; their outcomes are not reported.

Outcome

Resolved

According to La Razón, the Social Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Asturias (judgment 1385/2024, 29 July 2024) reversed a Gijón labour court ruling that had held Securitas responsible, absolved Securitas of the obligation to take on the guard because the roving and electronic-surveillance service differed from the previous continuous on-site service, declared the dismissal unfair and ordered Protectum to pay €30,672.72 for termination of the contract plus processing wages at €58.76 a day. The judgment noted that an appeal for the unification of doctrine was possible; whether one was lodged is not reported.

What remains unknown

  • The location of the guarded installations and how many guards of the outgoing contract lost their jobs.
  • What the AI cameras analysed and how much of the reduction in on-site guarding they accounted for, as against roving patrols and remote operators.
  • Whether an appeal for the unification of doctrine was lodged and whether the compensation has been paid.
  • The text of judgment 1385/2024, which was not inspected.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. La Razón attributes the harm to a client's decision to adopt a security service that included cameras with AI for video analysis. La Razón, describing the proven facts of the judgment, reports that continuous on-site guarding gave way to a system of cameras with artificial intelligence for video analysis, roving patrols and alarm response, and that the guards of the outgoing contract were left out. It also reports that human guards still intervened and that the new contract was cheaper, so the AI cameras are one part of the reorganisation that ended the post. As La Razón reports it, the court's reasoning turned on the changed identity of the service (roving patrols and electronic surveillance, a 95% equipment renewal, a cheaper contract), and the AI cameras appear in its proven facts as one element of that renewal. No source says an AI system produced any output about the guard, so the relation is unknown under the consequential-response exemption.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported From 1 August 2023 Duro Felguera replaced the continuous on-site guarding provided by Protectum with a Securitas service that combined cameras with artificial intelligence for video analysis, roving patrols and alarm response, according to La Razón's account of the judgment.

Causal attribution. La Razón's account of the proven facts of the judgment; the judgment was not inspected.

  • larazon.es(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'La vigilancia presencial permanente dio paso a un sistema de cámaras con inteligencia artificial, rondas itinerantes y respuesta a alarmas'; 'Duro Felguera contrató el nuevo servicio con Securitas el 1 de agosto de 2023'; 'Securitas sustituyó el 95% del sistema anterior, instaló nuevas cámaras e incorporó cámaras con IA para el análisis de vídeo'
Reported The guards of the outgoing contract were left out of the new contract, and Protectum ended the claimant guard's employment on 31 July 2023.

Causal attribution. La Razón's account of the case.

  • larazon.es(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'dejó a los vigilantes de la anterior contrata fuera del nuevo contrato'; 'que había extinguido el contrato del empleado el 31 de julio de 2023'
Reported The High Court of Justice of Asturias (judgment 1385/2024, 29 July 2024) absolved Securitas of taking on the guard because the new service differed from the old, declared the dismissal unfair and ordered Protectum to pay €30,672.72 plus processing wages at €58.76 a day.

Causal attribution. La Razón's account of the judgment.

  • larazon.es(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'La sentencia 1385/2024 del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Asturias, fechada el 29 de julio de 2024'; 'la nueva adjudicataria quedó absuelta porque el sistema de rondas y vigilancia electrónica era diferente'; 'El despido, sin embargo, fue declarado improcedente'; 'El fallo le reconoció 30.672,72 euros por la extinción del contrato'; 'a razón de 58,76 euros diarios'
Reported La Razón states that human intervention continued in the new service and that the presence of AI was part of the established reorganisation without making the dismissal lawful; the court also noted that the new contract was cheaper.

Causal attribution. La Razón's analysis and its account of the judgment; this limits how far the job loss can be attributed to AI.

  • larazon.es(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'aunque siguió habiendo intervención humana'; 'La presencia de esa tecnología formaba parte de la reorganización acreditada, pero no convirtió el despido en procedente'; 'El tribunal señala que el nuevo contrato era más barato'

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in full in Spanish by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-12 (HTTP 200); the English assertions are the agent's translation and no human translator reviewed them. The article reports the content of TSJ Asturias judgment 1385/2024, which was not itself inspected. Applies to s1.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Spain.

The case was decided by the Gijón labour court and the High Court of Justice of Asturias (La Razón). The article does not state where Duro Felguera's guarded installations are, so no event country is recorded from the court's seat; the guard's residence is not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-12: Published as a consequential-response case: according to La Razón's account of the judgment, a guard's employment ended when the client replaced on-site guarding with a service built on AI video-analysis cameras, and the High Court of Justice of Asturias declared the dismissal unfair. The AI connection and the ruling are reported from one newspaper account; the guard is a private person and is not named.

People described

A security guard employed by the outgoing contractor whose employment ended when the client switched to a service that, according to La Razón's account of the judgment, combined cameras with AI video analysis, roving patrols and alarm response; a private person, not named in the report or here. Other guards of the outgoing contract were also left out of the new contract; their number and outcomes are not reported.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One counted: the guard whose dismissal the court ruled on. La Razón says the guards (plural) of the previous contract were left out of the new contract but gives no number and does not report whether the others lost their jobs, so only the claimant is counted, as a documented minimum.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#dismissal#workplace-ai#security-guards#video-analytics#labour-court#unfair-dismissal#consequential-response

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Asturias court rules a security guard's 2023 dismissal unfair after a client replaced on-site guarding with AI cameras and patrols, La Razón reports. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2023-asturias-court-security-guard-dismissal-unfair-after-switch-to-ai-camera-surveillance

BibTeX

@misc{2023_asturias_court_security_guard_dismissal_unfair_after_switch_to_ai_camera_surveillance,
  title = {Asturias court rules a security guard's 2023 dismissal unfair after a client replaced on-site guarding with AI cameras and patrols, La Razón reports},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2023-asturias-court-security-guard-dismissal-unfair-after-switch-to-ai-camera-surveillance}
}

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