Jusletter IT

Perhaps the most substantive issue raised by monitoring and surveillance in the workplace relates to the fundamental right to privacy and data protection of workers. And today, the possibilities for infringing on privacy in the workplace are greater than ever before like the use of video surveillance. But if overt and covert monitoring of the workplace using video surveillance cameras has been an issue for many years, nowadays video surveillance continues to be an issue which regularly leads to workplace disputes, particularly when cameras are installed without prior consultation or are used surreptitiously for employee performance monitoring or disciplinary purposes, violating the principle of transparency. In several key respects the use of surveillance cameras today poses greater concerns than in the past, when camera images would be monitored in real time or recorded on magnetic tape. These days, data from cameras is more likely to be in digital form, and as such can be stored on an indefinite basis along with other digitised data. Given this sort of development, it becomes even more important to ensure that the use of video surveillance is adequately controlled and respects all the principles of data protection. On the other hand, there is a big discussion around the issue of the possibility of covert video surveillance. In some countries it is not allowed but in many other countries there are cases related with Labour Law that accepted, in some cases, the covert surveillance uses against an employee, and the question is if it is possible to do that and what data protection principles should be respected.