Guardians of Data Podcast: Employee Surveillance Without Losing Trust

Description

In this episode we discuss workplace monitoring of employees.

Employers have always made use of the latest technology to monitor employees. In the past this would have involved things like CCTV and telephone monitoring and vehicle tracking. But new technologies, particularly AI, are taking employee surveillance to another level. Employers can now collect much more detailed information about what employees do, where they are and how they work. This is increasingly being used, with AI and algorithms, to allocate tasks and assess employee performance.

But just because we can monitor employees more, does it mean we should? Can surveillance really improve productivity? What happens to trust when employees know that every action can be measured? And as AI takes on more employee management functions, what are employers losing?

To help answer these questions, I'm joined by Professor Kirstie Ball from the University of St Andrews. Kirstie is an internationally recognised expert on workplace surveillance and the author of the report Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance in the Workplace which was published by the European Union in 2021. Kirstie is also the co-director and founder of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy and has been a consultant to the UK's Information Commissioner. 

The focus of this podcast is not the law on workplace monitoring. It's a conversation about what happens when surveillance changes the relationship between employers and employees. We talk about trust, dignity, autonomy and wellbeing; and about whether technology designed to improve performance can sometimes have the opposite effect.