15
ISSUES: Privacy
Chapter 1: What is privacy?
One of the seven judges came to
a different conclusion on the case,
partly because he disagreed that this
was relevant. He said that the ban
on personal communications didn’t
mention “an Internet surveillance
policy being implemented in the
workplace”. But the other six overruled
him.
Finally, the court noted that Mr
Bărbulescu had stated in writing that
his account contained only messages
about work. Taking him at his word, his
employer wouldn’t have expected to
find any sensitive personal information
when it looked at his account.
Again, if this weren’t the case, judges
might take a different view.
Should I be worried about
being watched in the office?
An employment law specialist at the
technology and digital media law firm
Kemp Little told us that the outcome
of Mr Bărbulescu’s case “is actually
broadly in line with existing English
Employment Tribunal decisions in this
area”.
The official UK Government website
already tells readers that “employers
might monitor workers. This could be
done in various ways, like… checking
a worker’s emails or the websites they
look at”.
The conciliation service Acas advises
that employers might keep an eye
on “excessive private use of emails,
Internet use, etc”, but that workers
should be told about it.
As our legal advisor, Joshua Rozenberg,
said on BBC’s
PM
programme last
night, employees worried about
being monitored should check their
contract. If it or company policy bans
you from using work computers to
send personal messages, you’re less
likely to be able to plead privacy.
14 January 2016
Ö
Ö
The above information is reprinted
with kind permission from Full
Fact. Please visit
for further information.
© Full Fact 2017
Why the rise of wearable
tech to monitor employees
is worrying
An article from
The Conversation
.
By Ivan Manokha, Departmental Lecturer in International Political
Economy, University of Oxford
A
n increasing number of
companies
are
beginning
to digitally monitor their
employees. While employers have
always scrutinised their workers’
performance, the rise of wearable
technology to keep tabs has more of
a dystopian edge to it. Monitoring has
become easier, more intrusive and is
not just limited to the workplace – it’s
24/7.
Devices such as Fitbit, Nike+ FuelBand
and Jawbone UP, which can record
information related to health, fitness,
sleep quality, fatigue levels and location,
are now being used by employers
who integrate wearable devices into
employee wellness programmes.
One of the first was BP America, which
introduced Fitbit bracelets in 2013. In
2015 at least 24,500 BPs employees
were using them and more and
more US employers have followed
suit. For instance, the same year,
Vista Staffing Solutions, a healthcare
recruitment agency, started a weight-
loss programme using Fitbits and WiFi-
enabled bathroom scales. Appirio, a
consulting company, started handing
out Fitbits to employees in 2014.
In the UK, similar projects are under
consideration by major employers. And
this trend will only intensify in the years
to come. By 2018, estimates suggest that
more than 13 million of these devices
will be part of worker wellness schemes.
Some analysts say that by the same year,
at least 2 million employees worldwide
will be required to wear health-and-
fitness trackers as a condition of
employment.
According to some, this is a positive
development. Chris Brauer, an academic
at Goldsmiths, University of London,
argues
that
corporate
managers
will now be comparable to football
managers. They will be equipped with
a dashboard of employee performance
trajectories, as well as their fatigue and
sleep levels. They will be able to pick
only the fittest employees for important
business meetings, presentations, or
negotiations.
It seems, however, that such optimism
overlooks
important
negative
and potentially dangerous social
consequences of using this kind of
technology. History here offers a word
of warning.
Historical precedent
The monitoring of workers’ health
outside the workplace was once
attempted by the Ford Motor Company.
When Ford introduced a moving
assembly line in 1913 – a revolutionary
innovation that enabled complete
control over the pace of work – the
increase in productivity was dramatic.
But so was the rise in worker turnover.
In 1913, every time the company wanted
to add 100 men to its factory personnel,
it was necessary to hire 963, as workers
struggled to keep up with the pace and
left shortly after being recruited.
Ford’s solution to this problem was to
double wages. In 1914, the introduction
of a US$5 a day wage was announced,
which immediately led to a decline in
worker turnover. But high wages came
with a condition: the adoption of healthy
and moral lifestyles.
The company set up a sociology
department to monitor workers’ – and
their families’ – compliance with its
standards. Investigators would make
unannounced calls upon employees and
their neighbours to gather information
on living conditions and lifestyles. Those
that were deemed insufficiently healthy
or morally right were immediately
disqualified from the US$5 wage level.
Analysing Ford’s policies, Italian
political philosopher and revolutionary
