The Legalities of Employee Surveillance

Labor & employment counsel Emma Vennesson and associate Charlotte Marshall authored an article for People Management on important considerations for employers contemplating monitoring their staff.

In the article “The legalities of employee surveillance,” Vennesson and Marshall advise that, because monitoring involves the collection of large amounts of employees’ personal data, employers should ensure any such monitoring is carried out in accordance with relevant data protection laws, such as the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations.

They also suggest that employers give employees details about the legitimate business interests which are relevant to surveillance, carry out an impact assessment prior to monitoring employees to consider why such monitoring is deemed necessary, and consider employees’ right to a private life, as enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.