‘Young people and black workers at highest risk of workplace surveillance’

Young people new to the labour market and black employees are among the most likely to be subject to surveillance in the workplace, according to a report.

Shop floor staff, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, and those working in call centres and from home are all at high risk of having calls recorded, emails analysed and possibly even being monitored by cameras or laptop webcams, a think tank said.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said there is an urgent need for legal reform so workers can have a say over how they are monitored and managed both at work and while working from home, amid a warning rights to privacy could be being breached.

Low-skilled roles

Its research suggested those in low-skilled roles – where worker retention may be seen as less critical – and low-autonomy jobs – where there might be lower levels of employee trust – as well as those not in a union are most likely to be subject to monitoring at work.

Young workers aged 16 to 29 came out as being at high risk.

Black employees were also seen as likely to face surveillance, with high rates of low autonomy and lower-skilled work, although greater levels of union representation.

Among workers in the private sector, men were found to be at higher risk of surveillance across all three risk factor measures.

New legislation

The IPPR is calling on the UK Government to introduce new legislation that gives people “a genuine voice over how they are monitored at work” through new legal rights to consultation – similar to those with redundancy law – and more transparency requirements, compelling employers to disclose what data is collected, why, and how it will be used.

Joseph Evans, IPPR researcher and co-author of the report, said while technology has “evolved really rapidly”, legislation has not kept up with the pace of change “so at the moment many of these practices are not illegal but what we don’t have is a mechanism to control them where surveillance does tip over into potential breaches of privacy or freedom of expression and association in the workplace”.

He said surveillance can have “quite negative impacts on people in terms of their health and stress and anxiety”.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is has transformed surveillance, he added, giving employers an even greater insight into their employees.

He said: “Surveillance and algorithmic management are very linked. Often surveillance packages are single software packages which both collect data and then use it to make recommendations to employers, and algorithmic management itself is being innovated and rapidly transformed by AI which can create much more sophisticated insights.”

Inequalities

Increasing levels of surveillance of certain workers could “deepen the inequalities already baked into the labour market”, said Mr Evans, noting that black workers are more likely to be in jobs with a higher risk of “intrusive surveillance”.

He added that productivity could also be affected.

“If surveillance has a chilling effect on people’s willingness to express themselves in the workplace, that may also decrease their satisfaction at work,” he said.

“As part of their wider changes to employment rights, through the Employment Rights Bill, there should be substantive new rights to negotiate and consult over surveillance. And specifically adapting pieces of legislation like the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act to provide the new mechanism for workers to be able to negotiate over surveillance.

“Implicit in the right to negotiate is that it would give workers the right to challenge if they felt it (surveillance) was excessive or unfair.”

The IPPR analysed data from the 2023 Institute for Social and Economic Research’s UK Household Longitudinal Survey to produce its findings.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “Our plan to Make Work Pay aims to ensure workers’ rights keep pace with technological change so that workers’ voices are at the heart of Britain’s digital transition.

“This includes safeguarding against invasion of privacy and discrimination by algorithms.”