text: (This story has been updated with comments from the plaintiff's attorney.) 
   
   A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 
   
   Plaintiff Myrna Arias, a former Bakersfield sales executive for money transfer service Intermex, claims in a state court lawsuit that her boss, John Stubits, fired her shortly after she uninstalled the job-management Xora app that she and her colleagues were required to use. According to her suit (PDF) in Kern County Superior Court: 
   
   After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone. Plaintiff expressed that she had no problem with the app's GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours and complained to Stubits that this was an invasion of her privacy. She likened the app to a prisoner's ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion….. 
   
   Intermex did not immediately respond for comment. 
   
   The suit, which claims invasion of privacy, retaliation, unfair business practices, and other allegations, seeks damages in excess of $500,000 and asserts she was monitored on the weekends when she was not working. 
   
   Arias' boss "scolded" her for uninstalling the app shortly after being required to use it, according to the suit. Her attorneys said the woman made $7,250 per month and that she "met all quotas" during a brief stint with Intermex last year. 
   
   "This intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person," the filing said. 
   
   Arias' attorney, Gail Glick, said in a Monday e-mail to Ars that the app allowed her client's "bosses to see every move the employees made throughout the day." 
   
   The app had a "clock in/out" feature which did not stop GPS monitoring, that function remained on. This is the problem about which Ms. Arias complained. Management never made mention of mileage. They would tell her co-workers and her of their driving speed, roads taken, and time spent at customer locations. Her manager made it clear that he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time. 
   
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   Myrna Arias sued Intermex Wire Transfer LLC in Kern County Superior Court on May 5. 
   
   Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Intermex describes itself on its website as " a leading processor of money-transfer services in the U.S. to Latin America corridor." 
   
   It has 30,000 locations worldwide and offers services in 45 states and 16 Latin American countries, the website adds. 
   
   Arias says she worked for Intermex as a sales executive and account manager from February 2014 to May 2014. 
   
   She was still working for rival NetSpend Corporation when she was hired. Her boss, Intermex's regional vice president of sales John Stubits, agreed to let her work for both NetSpend and Intermex for three months until she qualified for Intermex's medical insurance because she was suffering from a severe vitamin B-12 deficiency and did not want to lose her treatment, according to the complaint. 
   
   Arias says she did well at her job, meeting all her quotas and earning around $7,250 a month. 
   
   But everything changed in April 2014, when she claims Stubits told her and several other employees to download an app from Xora onto their smartphones that "contained a global positioning system function which tracked the exact location of the person possessing the smartphones on which it was installed." 
   
   Xora Inc., now ClickSoftware Solution, is not a party to the complaint. 
   
   According to a September 2011 press release, the app enables employees to create electronic timecards on their phones to track when their shifts start, when they take breaks, and when a shift ends. 
   
   Plaintiff attorney Gail Glick told Courthouse News that Arias was one of the first employees asked to put the app on her phone. 
   
   "They were guinea pigs," Glick said. 
   
   Arias says in her complaint that she researched the app and asked Stubits if Intermex would be tracking her whereabouts when she was off the clock. 
   
   "Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she had installed the app on her phone," Arias says in her complaint. "Plaintiff expressed that she had no problem with the app's GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours and complained to Stubits that this was an invasion of her privacy. She likened the app to a prisoner's ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion because Intermex was paying plaintiff more than NetSpend." 
   
   Stubits also told Arias she had to keep her phone on "24/7" to assist clients, and "scolded" her when she uninstalled the app to protect her privacy, the complaint adds. 
   
   Arias says Intermex fired her a few weeks later. 
   
   Glick said that an employer can legally monitor employees at work if there is a "legitimate business interest" to do so. 
   
   "But if an employee can't stop it, then that is a complete violation of California and federal laws against invasion of privacy," she said. 
   
   Arias objected to the app because there was no way to turn it off when she was at home. Even if she shut down the app on her phone, it would still be running in the background, Glick said. 
   
   "She found it very offensive that they were treating her like a felon," she added. "She was not underperforming, so there was no reason to monitor her." 
   
   To make matters worse, Glick said, Intermex was so angry at her objection to the app that it went "above and beyond a normal wrongful termination and interfered with her ability to earn a livelihood." 
   
   Arias says in her complaint that Robert Lisy, Intermex's president and CEO, "telephoned John Nelson, vice president of NetSpend, and informed Nelson that plaintiff had been disloyal to NetSpend and was employed by Intermex. As a result of Lisy's intentional and malicious interference with plaintiff's contract with NetSpend, NetSpend fired plaintiff promptly. NetSpend specifically cited Lisy's phone call as the reason for the decision to terminate plaintiff," the complaint states. 
   
   Lisy, Nelson and NetSpend are not parties to the complaint. 
   
   With two black marks against her and a gap in her employment record, Arias has had a hard time finding a new job, Glick said. 
   
   Representatives for Intermex did not respond to comment requests by press time. 
   
   Arias seeks an injunction and general, special and punitive damages for invasion of privacy, retaliation, labor code violations, intentional interference with contract, wrongful termination and unfair business practices. 
   
   Her attorney Gail A. Glick is with Alexander, Krakow & Glick of Santa Monica. "We intend to pursue this aggressively and get her the justice she deserves," Glick said. "What we have here is a really egregious situation, and we are hoping to right that wrong."
target: – Myrna Arias didn't like the GPS app on her phone that constantly tracked her, so she uninstalled it. The problem: Arias' iPhone was issued by her employer, which required her to run the app constantly, and after she removed it, the California woman was fired. Now she's suing her former employer, money transfer service Intermex, for invasion of privacy, unfair business practices, and retaliation, among other things, Ars Technica reports. Arias started researching the app, then called Xora—its website touts the app's ability to let employers "instantly see where their employees are and where they have been"—and eventually she and some of her colleagues asked a trainer from the app company to clarify. Boss John Stubits then, per the suit, "admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments." Arias says she has no problem being monitored while at work, but she complained to Stubits about being tracked in her free time; he was unsympathetic and said she should have no problem because of how much she was being paid by Intermex. "Her manager made it clear that he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time," the complaint states, noting that he told Arias she needed to keep her phone on at all times in case a customer called. Arias' attorney tells Courthouse News that there was no way to turn the app off, as it would constantly run in the background. "She found it very offensive that they were treating her like a felon," the attorney says. Arias says her boss "scolded" her for uninstalling the program last year, and fired her soon after. (Elsewhere, a woman got fired over a text mistakenly sent to the boss.)