This is a constructive dismissal. If she was hourly, sure, being on camera makes sense. But if you are salaried and some clown in HR decides that they want to make sure you're working 40 hours but WON'T pay you any overtime or judge you on your output, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.
The outrage is justified. If it mattered for her job then no AI monitoring would be needed.
Obviously there is no minimum number of hours you must work when salaried, but it’s obviously the expectation. You likely know this which is why you are against them tracking how much time you actually spend working. If they knew the work only took you 10 hours, would they still want to pay such an inflated salary?
I negotiated my salary with competing offers. If my company decides, after negotiating from a position of strength with their eyes open, that my salary is too high... that's a "them" problem. Doubly so if I had been employed for eight years and they've never complained.
The courts will treat it like a firing done for no reason at all (i.e. at-will employment). I personally shudder to think of staffing a company with the kinds of people who would put up with this nonsense, but the beauty of capitalism is that companies face financial consequences for driving off good employees.
This is just patiently false, it's common for salaried employees to have required hours.
https://www.inc.com/alison-green/my-employee-says-i-cant-sto...
Your company can't just suddenly drastically change them on you without it being a constructive dismissal. This is not a new concept. Companies have been trying to dodge unemployment claims by making people's jobs so bad that they quit since forever. It's very easy to prove and will be seen as a firing by the courts.