The TUC has warned employers that they must be clear with staff about their monitoring policies, after research revealed that more than half of workers believe they are monitored at work.
The survey of more than 1,200 workers by the TUC in May found 56 per cent felt monitoring was going on in the workplace, via CCTV, browsing history and phone logs. A similar number believed the development of new technologies could increase these practices, fuelling distrust and discrimination.
For the TUC it illustrates the need for organisations to be transparent about how they monitor their workforce, as failing to warn staff that monitoring is taking place could have legal consequences.
While recent changes to data protection law via GDPR have further safeguarded the limits on monitoring staff, the TUC called for new protections to ensure employers only use surveillance for legitimate reasons, and the introduction of tougher enforcement measures to ensure workers are informed of monitoring technologies.
