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Financial servicesLatest NewsProfessional servicesHR TechnologyStaff monitoring

PwC facial recognition tool criticised for home working privacy invasion

by Ashleigh Webber 16 Jun 2020
by Ashleigh Webber 16 Jun 2020 Chrispictures / Shutterstock.com
Chrispictures / Shutterstock.com

Accounting giant PwC has come under fire for the development of a facial recognition tool that logs when employees are absent from their computer screens while they work from home.

The technology, which is being developed specifically for financial institutions, recognises the faces of workers via their computer’s webcam and requires them to provide a written reason for any absences, including toilet breaks.

Monitoring employees

When does keeping tabs on working time overstep the line

Does employee surveillance improve or impair performance?

According to PwC, it is designed to help highly-regulated financial institutions meet their compliance obligations, as workers would normally be monitored for security purposes on trading floors. However, commentators have raised privacy concerns about the use of such a tool while employees are working from home due to coronavirus restrictions.

City commentator David Buik told Financial News that the tool was “a huge intrusion on privacy”, while the CIPD’s head of research and thought leadership Ed Houghton said staff were “likely to be highly sensitive to personal privacy when working from home”.

Houghton said: “Subjecting workers to high levels of monitoring and surveillance should be avoided. Intrusive workplace surveillance damages trust, has a negative impact on morale and can create heightened stress and anxiety for workers.”

PwC said in a statement: “We are developing technology specifically to support the compliance environment required for traders and front office staff in financial institutions. Crucially it is designed to support those adhering to the regulations while remote working, in the least intrusive, pragmatic way.

“Trading is highly regulated and there are strict requirements for traders in the workplace – for example secure trading floors without access to personal mobile phones. Regulators have stated that remote working results in a change in risk and requires additional controls and mitigations.

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“The technology we are developing can be calibrated to banks and individuals’ own needs and working hours. We have also recommended to interested parties that the voluntary consent of traders wanting to work from home is essential.”

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Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is a former editor of OHW+ and former HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support.

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3 comments

David 27 Jun 2020 - 5:19 am

This is probably the most unnecessary tool to be developed for the employee management side of business.

Kent 8 Sep 2020 - 8:08 pm

Did you read the explanation from PwC? The application was developed to address current regulatory requirements for financial institutions that not being met as a result of remote working due to COVID. Therefore, it is fulfills a specific and fundamental management (regulatory) need that, barring any changes in regulations, is necessary to meet their legal requirements. So the regulations need to change or impacted financial institutions Have to come up with a solution. PwC is just helping address the latter.

D A 27 Sep 2020 - 7:56 am

This will not meet the financial regulations as they can be bypassed at any time with little canals or clubs as the libor scam showed so this is disingenuous at best and fairly typical big brother speak. The aim with spending money on this would be very unlikely limited use and more likely adding to a very negative intrusion culture which will rapidly destroy nit just employee culture but the wider social and natural environment forcing commuting and totally unnecessary behaviours. Trust is what you need and capable investigators not invasion of personal space.and belittling of the vast majority who will react with decreases in productivity while those up to no good will still carry out in new and increasingly difficult and innovative ways to monitor. It is always a mistake to drive change in this fashion.

Comments are closed.

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