Workplace surveillance is widespread and largely unregulated.

Depending on who you talk to it is a productivity booster, a morale-crusher, a life-saver, helping companies to comply with laws or putting a CCTV camera in the homes of millions of workers. 

The reality — as multiple ongoing inquiries are finding — is complex.

Installing systems that monitor the workloads and movements of staff at his industrial laundries has seen a 5 per cent boost in productivity, according to owner Warwick Brown.

"Prior to having any sort of counting system in place, the staff didn't know whether or not they were performing well or not, so at least the staff get a visual aspect to say, 'Right I'm in the range of where I need to be. I'm working at the right pace'," Mr Brown said.

Mr Brown, who operates sites in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland sees safety as one of the key benefits. 

For example, as the temperature rises in the factory staff get extra time off to rest and recover, and screens remind workers when to take their breaks. 

On one site, a tracking system ensures no worker spends more than two hours a day in a particularly noisy area. 

"It's a physical job, we need to make sure that everyone's being rotated correctly so they're not stuck doing the same job all the time," he said, which has reduced soft tissue injuries.

"Having this sort of technology available to us has certainly helped us manage our productivity as a whole, and certainly highlighted where we've got problems in the plant, whether that be with people or equipment." 

But others see the downsides, particularly after COVID-powered years of radical change in employment.

Remote work and cheap artificial intelligence (AI) tools have massively boosted the ability of bosses to watch their workers.

'Every moment'

Some workers are subject to more surveillance than others. 

For example, truck drivers with closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems are watched as they drive, with their braking and acceleration monitored. 

Staff in many retail jobs have every transaction timed and analysed.

Nicole McPherson, the national assistant secretary for the Finance Sector Union, believes her members are the most scrutinised in the nation, describing it as occurring at "every single moment of a worker's working life".

"When they log into their computers, it's recorded. Every interaction with a colleague is recorded. Every interaction with a customer is recorded. There is basically no moment that a finance worker is at work that they are not being subject to some form of surveillance," she said.

Ms McPherson believes 'key logging' to be one of the most insidious forms of workplace surveillance.

"Employers use software to record how many times you press the keys on your keyboard in a shift, and how much you're moving your mouse during a shift. 

Instead, she said, a lot of value created in companies is in elements more difficult to count, like thinking or talking to a colleague.

"That doesn't count as work anymore," she said. 

"These forms of surveillance reduce us down to just a series of numbers and the outputs that we can create that are measurable, and it really doesn't put enough importance on the other types of (things) we create as working people."

New South Wales' parliament completed a report on the issue in 2022. 

In Victoria a parliamentary hearing is on-going and looming over it all, a review of the federal Privacy Act.

Big challenge

The NSW report said that while surveillance of workers was not new, advancements in technology mean the pace of change and the complex challenge that poses "cannot be understated".

It detailed the "Amazon-style situation", where stock pickers in massive warehouses are timed to the second with constant measuring of work performance.

The report said this practice has led to the development of the term 'Amazon pace'.

Amazon staff have alleged they avoid bathroom breaks and circumvent safety restrictions so they can try to pick near the constantly-decreasing times until the next item needs to be in their trolley.

Trends that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic and working from home arrangements stretched some of this monitoring into the home.

The NSW report detailed surveillance methods such as:

• Automated systems to collect consumer feedback
• Biometrics such as finger scans, facial recognition and retinal scans
• Digital badges that track movement, tone of voice and the content of conversations
• Monitoring of calls, emails and web browsing
• Wearable such as FitBits and digital watches

But among the most common are internet-linked software like interguard, Teramind, Time Doctor , ActivTrack, Insightful and others that operate — unseen — recording employees’ screens whilst they work, tracking keystrokes, time spent on different applications and the amount of internet bandwidth being used. 

Sinister sound

Innes Willox gets how it all comes across.

"Surveillance sounds like a sinister term," the chief executive of business lobby the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) said.

"But it's really necessary for key aspects of work, for health and safety reasons, for compliance, for learning, for business and also for record keeping."

Businesses have obligations to their customers, such as to treat them fairly and to provide services they're paid for. 

They also have obligations to their employees, such as to pay them correctly and to do their best to keep them safe by reducing accidents.

"In the end, it's employers who are on the hook for any wrongdoing or mistakes that are made, accidents that occur," he said.

Surveillance can help to deter inappropriate workplace behaviour, assist in investigations into damaging behaviour or in response to complaints and monitor communications to ensure technology is not used in unlawful acts.

And employees have obligations to do the work they're paid for, according to Innes Willox.

"(That) they're not using work time to engage in other activities that are not productive.

"We're all on the clock here, but we need to make sure that we get the balance right between what's good for the workplace and workers, as well as respecting privacy in many cases."

Difficult balance

Submissions to the on-going Victorian parliamentary inquiry suggest employees aren't given a true understanding of the surveillance they're under and lack the ability to object.

"Surveillance now occurs automatically and in seemingly innocuous but potentially more intrusive ways," said a submission from QUT's Centre for Decent Work and Industry. 

"These new methods of monitoring the activities of workers can blur the boundaries between an individual’s professional and private life, and inadvertently subject people who are not employees to surveillance by an organisation."

New surveillance systems offer more data, but that does not necessarily make workplaces more productive or effective according to Dr Dale Tweedie, senior lecturer in the Department of Accounting & Corporate Governance at Macquarie University.

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"Contemporary tools risk intensifying harms by exacerbating these surveillance features."

Additionally, Dr Tweedie states, the tools have been applied extensively in companies and sectors "where workers have relatively little autonomy or bargaining power".

Casual and 'gig' employment mean employees have limited real ability to say 'No'.

"To provide legitimate consent to surveillance, workers need sufficient capacity to challenge surveillance without penalty."

Busy work

Negotiating with employers about workplace surveillance is part of Stephen Fodrocy's job at the Australian Manufacturing Worker's Union.

He describes an issue which the union took to the Fair Work Commission, where plane maintenance crews of Boeing Australia were having their efficiency 'scored' on large screens mounted high in the workplace.

"One of the complaints that we heard from those employees was this was increasing their stress, exacerbating mental health issues (and) straining their relationship with their co-workers, because it could invite some comparisons, which we think was part of the intention," he said.

"If they're having to rush because of the pressure that they feel — because of the monitoring and the displaying of that monitoring — we had grave concerns that mistakes would be made or omissions would happen, and then that wouldn't be in the interests of the company, let alone the workers or ... people on planes."

The issue was not resolved. The union says the screens remain.

"Part of the issue with surveillance is also this 'de-personalisation' of the worker, taking the worker away from themselves — as a person with thoughts and feelings, the need to be safe, to make friends and socialise with their co-workers, everything that we take for granted," he said.

"It turns them into a data point and limits them to their productivity as opposed to who they are as a whole person."

More to come

Nothing changes today.

The NSW report recommended the government update laws to "take account of contemporary workplace surveillance activities and advancements in technologies" and build in "clear privacy protections for workers". 

The Victorian inquiry is ongoing, and chair Alison Marchant says the committee will table a final report next year.

Without flagging what it would conclude, she raised concerns about evidence so far.

"The (inquiry) has learnt that employers are increasingly using technology to track, monitor and manage employees but the lines between our work and private life are becoming blurred."

"We have heard from experts and witnesses throughout the inquiry that a balance is needed where employee surveillance is reasonable, necessary and proportionate."

Federal change

Laws covering workplace surveillance are often described as a 'patchwork', because of different states and territories and overlapping legislation about privacy, business rights and individual freedoms collide.

Stephen Fodrocy of the AMWU prefers another analogy.

"I think of it as a 'spaghetti bowl' of laws, really," he said. 

"There are a range of laws, but also sources of rights and obligations that overlap and deal with the same subject matter."

"It can be quite difficult to pull that out and make some sense of it. So if you think about a bowl of spaghetti, it's all sort of mixed in with the sauce, it's all tangled. It's quite difficult."

Legislation before federal parliament proposes changes to privacy laws, with the government aiming to pass it this year. 

A review of the Privacy Act saw the government agree in-principle to changes that would extend private protections to private sector workers with "enhanced transparency" about why the information was being collected and requiring it to be destroyed when no longer needed.

But changes to workplace surveillance would occur in future planned legislation.

"We don't need duplication. We need simplicity and we need conformity of rules and regulations," warns the Ai Group's Innes Willox.

"We've have had the rise of work from home. We've had significant advances in technology. All of this has to be balanced, but it's not going to be balanced by the federal government and state governments getting in each other's way and trying to play a game of 'one-upmanship'."