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Employee monitoring legislation

In June 2003, the Office of the Information Commissioner published Monitoring at Work, 

to provide practical guidance for employers on how they should approach monitoring of 

employees in the workplace. These guidelines seek to achieve a balance between employees’ 

wishes for privacy and the need for employers to run their businesses efficiently. The code 

does not prevent monitoring, but is based on the concept of proportionality. Proportionality 

means that any adverse impacts from monitoring must be justified by the benefits to the 

employer and others. This addresses an apparent anomaly in that data protection law refers 

to individual consent for processing of personal data being ‘freely given’ and it is not normal 

for employees to give this consent. The code makes it clear that individual consent is not 

required provided that an organisation has undertaken an ‘