Monitoring employees at work

[Brian Turner]

Under current legislation there are only limited circumstances in which employers can monitor employee telephone and e-mail communciations.

The Data Protection Registrar has recently published a new code on monitoring at work which in summary provides that:

• workers should be told if they are being monitored;
• employers can monitor workers when the advantage to the business outweighs the intrusion into the workers' affairs, but employers should normally only be used for the purpose for which the monitoring was carried out (ie, quality control);
• information discovered through monitoring should normally only be used for the purpose for which the monitoring was carried out (ie quality control);
• the information discovered should be kept secure, which may mean only letting one or two people have access to it;
• employers should be careful when monitoring personal communications such as e-mails which are clearly personal;
• employers should not undertake covert monitoring except in the rarest circumstances where it us used for the prevention of detection of crime, it has been authorised at the highest level of the business, and where there is a risk that notifying workers of the monitoring would frustrate the purpose of the monitoring.

Key points:

• The Data Protection Agency has published a code on monitoring at work
• Workers should be told if they are being monitored
• The information should be passed to a limited number of people
• Generally employers should no undertake overt monitoring