Documents employee monitoring 79 results

"With the rise of algorithmic management, the deployment of AI surveillance has proliferated in the modern workplace. AI surveillance relies on advanced computational methods to draw statistical inferences about workers from their data. These inferences are subsequently used by employers to inform various organisational and managerial decisions. This commodifies workers into statistical entities, which objectifies and instrumentalises the value of human work as a series of data points for algorithmic analysis. The article explores how this transformation impacts the precarious role of privacy in the employment context, which already navigates the inherent informational imbalances that arise from the structural subordination of workers to employers and are further exasperated by AI surveillance. It focuses on the remedies of EU law that instantiate specific notions of informational control as a core ingredient to privacy and data protection. This involves consideration of the General Data Protection Regulation, as well as the jurisprudence of Articles 7 and 8 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, and Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The article argues that a greater emphasis on workers' informational control consolidates existing privacy protections and mitigates the systemic risks of data-driven commodification."

"The rise of algorithmic management (AM) is helping to transform work and employment relationships, creating new challenges and opportunities alike. AM leverages machine-learning algorithms to help automate managerial functions. This raises key questions about its impact on work, organisations, and the broader society. This paper synthesises existing research on AM and categorizes scholarly insights into five theoretical perspectives: AM as a surveillance and control system, as a neutral tool, as an agentic boss, as a socio-technical process, and AM as a contradictory unity. While AM enhances coordination and efficiency, it also raises concerns such as pervasive surveillance, bias, dehumanization and worker alienation. We highlight the tensions between control and autonomy, transparency and opacity, and efficiency and fairness, illustrating the paradoxical nature of AM. This paper proposes a future research agenda, calling for ethical governance and responsible design of algorithmic systems to reap the benefits of AM while managing potential risks and mitigating harms."

This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license and permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

"Over recent decades, comprehensive data protection legislation has proliferated worldwide, with a majority of jurisdictions enacting robust statutory regimes. Despite this abundance of legal standards, persistent challenges remain regarding the efficacy of these laws in protecting individuals‒particularly workers‒within the increasingly digitalised workplace. Workers are especially susceptible to harm due to entrenched power asymmetries and heightened risks of data exploitation, yet many existing legal frameworks provide insufficient or inconsistent protection, and some jurisdictions explicitly exclude workers from coverage. This research critically examines the multidimensional risks associated with workplace digitalisation and systematically analyses regulatory challenges and protection gaps across diverse jurisdictions. By integrating historical analysis, current policy initiatives, and comparative cross-jurisdictional perspectives, the study identifies structural deficiencies in prevailing approaches. It concludes by proposing policy solutions to advance worker-centric data governance frameworks, tailored to address the distinctive challenges of contemporary labour relations and to ensure more equitable and effective protection for workers in the digital age."

"Places of work constitute processes of management by facilitating 'visibility' (the possibility for supervisors and others to observe workers) and 'presence' (the ability for workers to participate in relations with co-workers and others). Working at home creates problems for both these aspects of managerial control. We suggest that managers seek to compensate for the relative lack of visibility and presence of home-located workers by generating a range of devices and social disciplines that together comprise loose networks of control. However, these responses are only partially successful since they are founded on contradictory assumptions and practices."

"This article examines the problems and challenges arising from the protection of employees' rights to privacy in the workplace in the information society. The use of information and communications technology in the workplace that allows data to be collected, stored, retrieved and processed in vast quantities and at great speed presents significant new opportunities and at the same time new threats to employers and employees, raising many questions about areas where interests and rights are in conflict and clear boundaries have to be drawn. The article deals specifically with the application of the law to cases of computer surveillance at work and to the collection and processing of employees' personal data. An account is given of specific legal rules, where they exist, and general principles laid down in constitutions, treaties, international norms EU Directives, comparing, where relevant, the European and the US approach to these matters. The article also points out the threats to employees' privacy and how to strike a balance between the rights, interests and expectations of the employer on the one hand with those of the employee on the other, with a view to protecting employee privacy as much as possible."

"The nature and scope of modern technology poses a growing threat to employee privacy in the workplace and, as a result, presents new challenges and a greater need for clearer rules and boundaries for both actors in the workplace: the employer and the employee. This article focuses on various aspects of surveillance and monitoring of employees regarding the internet, e-mail, phone calls and location data. It examines the problems and conflict of interests that arise and outlines various legal responses in hard law and soft law, including legal rulings. Different approaches to these topics are presented, mainly the approach of the American legal system versus the European ones, and some examples of cases in various countries are considered. It is argued that by learning from each other and the various solutions adopted, we should strive to preserve, as far as possible, the employee's right to privacy."