A former crew member who worked as a waiter aboard Royal Caribbean's Utopia of the Seas is challenging his dismissal after the company accused him of unauthorized internet usage that allegedly exceeded 4,3 Terabytes within a one-week period.

According to the company's Master's Hearing Form shared with Crew Center, the disciplinary hearing states that an internal audit of crew internet usage identified one crew account as having consumed 4,3 Terabytes of data during a continuous 687-minute session.

The hearing form says the crew member denied installing or using a VPN or other software to bypass the ship's internet restrictions. During the investigation, the company examined his phone with his consent and noted that two applications associated with VPN and internet-sharing capabilities were installed. The document also records that the crew member stated he owned an iPad at home on which the same applications were installed.

The company concluded that the incident violated its human resources policies and classified it as gross misconduct. The Master's decision recorded on the form states that the crew member was dismissed from both the ship and the company. 

The former crew member disputes the findings, saying that no evidence was found proving he had stolen internet data or bypassed the ship's network, despite the investigation. He further claims the dismissal occurred shortly before he was due to reach 10 years of service with the company, leading him to believe he was wrongfully terminated before becoming eligible for a long-service award.

The crew member also questioned the allegation itself, asking how a waiter could realistically "steal" that amount of data in a single week and what practical use such an amount of data would have been for an individual employee.