By Nick Heath, 8 January 2008 17:34
NEWS
'Big Brother'-style IT systems are now watching half of the UK's employees, fuelling fear and stress in the workplace.
Security from A to Z
Click on the links below to find out more...
A is for Antivirus
B is for Botnets
C is for CMA
D is for DDoS
E is for Extradition
F is for Federated identity
G is for Google
H is for Hackers
I is for IM
J is for Jaschan (Sven)
K is for Kids
L is for Love Bug
M is for Microsoft
N is for Neologisms
O is for Orange
P is for Passwords
Q is for Questions
R is for Rootkits
S is for Spyware
T is for Two-factor authentication
U is for USB sticks/devices
V is for Virus variants
W is for Wi-fi
X is for OS X
Y is for You
Z is for Zero-day
More than 12 million people are scrutinised by electronic surveillance at work causing a sharp rise in stress levels, according to a survey by the Policy Studies Institute (PSI).
For 23 per cent of UK employees, these IT systems are used to check the quality of work produced. Feelings of exhaustion and anxiety related to work are 7.5 per cent higher among these 23 per cent.
Privacy advocates say the surge in cyber snooping by bosses will land an increasing number of employers in court defending breaches of the Human Rights Act.
Last year a college secretary from Wales represented by human rights group Liberty won a legal battle against her employers after her personal communications were monitored for 18 months without her consent.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, told silicon.com the 50 per cent figure is a "crucial landmark" in the workplace.
He said: "The Data Protection Act offers woeful protection for employees and I would call on the government to present greater protections. I guarantee that we will see more and more human rights cases as this surveillance increases. Surveillance has serious health implications and the government has ignored this."
Michael White, one of the report's authors and research fellow at the PSI, said: "The immediate problem is likely to be a high level of job turnover and increased work strain is associated with adverse health implications. There is certainly the potential that employers could be facing more challenges."
Speaking at the time of their legal victory for the college secretary, Liberty's legal director James Welch said: "Employees don't leave their personal privacy at the front door when they come to work each day. This judgment makes perfectly clear that employers who spy on their staff are infringing their privacy."
Monitoring noted by the PSI study includes logging emails and internet usage, keystroke loggers, recording and timing calls and measuring shop-till throughput.
Bearing the brunt of the IT scrutiny are administrative and white collar employees, such as call-centre staff and data entry workers, who complained of an increase in work strain of 10 per cent when they are being watched.
But an increasing number of semi-skilled and manual workers, such as production line and distribution workers are also under the electronic eye, similarly reporting an increase in work strain of eight per cent when under scrutiny.
IT monitoring also applies to many managers and professionals but the study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, found no adverse effects for this group.
Do you know who has been reading your email? Find out here.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Thoughtful people have been warning of the varied and far reaching consequences of a "surveillance society" for some time. It would seem that some of these are now being acknowledged. It is not too late (yet!) to reverse this trend, but it requires more people to understand and some pretty direct action.
A good starting point would be a healthy debate about privacy in a technology enabled world - leading to some rather tough constraints on what employers and government may do - rolling back the frontiers of some current (often carefully concealed) practices.
2. Karen Challinor
micromanagement = macrofailure
if you don't trust your staff to do the job you've given them, you have given the job to the wrong people
if you have to keep staring over their shoulders and saying "no put that there" then you might as well do it yourself in which case you aren't being a manager because you aren't doing your job, you are doing theirs
3. Chris Goodman
I consider private and personal use of employer's time, and using employer's equipment and electricity/bandwidth, unless specifically and contractually agreed in employment terms, is THEFT.
People are employed to work to the best of their ability and produce the best possible throughput, not to waste time for personal purpose.
The Civil Service is a gross offender for this which I consider should be grounds for one warning, then dismissal.
4. Dave
So a company shouldn't monitor private use of their facilities BUT the government should be allowed to monitor my private use of my private facilities hmmm..
5. anonymous
Chris
your issue is the beef you have with the civil service then.
your comment has nothing to do the point of the article being the of lack of trust and abuse of privacy.
you don't need to snoop on people PC to see if they are slacking, just walk around, i can see it at my work without the need to snoop.
employers are no better than parents who want to snoop on their kids rather than have a frank debate about what is and is not acceptable. managers, especially senior manager should lead by example as i have them to be the worst culprits thinking that the rules don't apply to them.