Staff monitoring

Employers commonly monitor employees’ behaviour in the workplace to ensure that rules are not being broken and employees are acting appropriately while representing the employer.

Common methods of monitoring staff include recording employees’ activities on CCTV, checking emails, listening to voicemails and monitoring telephone conversations.

Employers should inform employees that monitoring is taking place, how data is being collected, how the data will be securely processed and the purpose for which the data will be used. Employee will usually be entitled to see data that has been collected about them. In exceptional circumstances, the organisation may use monitoring covertly (for example, to catch a thief).