01 June 2005
With the onset of the sixth series of Big Brother last Friday, I thought that I’d remind employees that whilst they are at work, they too, like the contestants of this show, cannot escape Big Brother’s watchful eye! In this article I will offer advise to employers about how they can adopt good practice when monitoring their employees at work.
Employers may wish to monitor employees’ activities in many situations at work, for example:
- Recording the activities of workers by using CCTV cameras
- Videoing employees outside the workplace, i.e. to collect evidence that they are not in fact sick
- Getting information from credit reference agencies
- Drug and alcohol testing
- Checking logs of websites visited
- Checking phone logs or recording of phone calls
- Using automated checking software to collect information about workers, e.g. to find out whether particular workers are sending or receiving inappropriate emails
- Opening mail or email
- Collecting information from electronic equipment utilised in the workplace to check your performance
Employers should follow the core principles of the "Data Protection Code of Practice: Monitoring at work" when carry out any such surveillance:
- It will usually be intrusive to monitor workers
- Workers have a legitimate expectation that they can keep their personal lives private and that they are entitled to a degree of privacy in the work environment
- If employers wish to monitor their workers, they should be clear about the purpose of monitoring, and be satisfied that the particular monitoring arrangement is justified by the real benefits that will be delivered
- Workers should be aware of the nature, extent and reasons for any monitoring, unless (exceptionally) covert monitoring is justified
- In any event, workers’ awareness will influence their expectations
Helpful tips for employers:
- Set out clearly the circumstances in which workers may or may not use your telephone systems, email systems and Internet access for private communications
- Make it clear the extent and type of private use that is allowed, for example restrictions on overseas calls or types of email attachments
- In the case of internet access the restrictions on material that can be viewed or copied should be clearly specified – the ban of "offensive material" is unlikely to be sufficiently clear for people to know what is or is not allowed
- Clear rules should be set regarding the use of employer’s communications equipment whilst away from the workplace
- The purposes for which any monitoring is conducted, the extent of the monitoring, the means used and the penalties, which exist for a breach of the policy, should be explained
For further information about any data protection issues, or help with creating a policy that covers workplace monitoring, please call the info-line.