Big Brother Watch is warning Starmer about ‘bossware’ – but will he listen?

Campaign group Big Brother Watch warns that workplace surveillance is on the rise. It is hosting a presentation of a report at the Labour conference. And it highlights the dangers of this for our health, rights, privacy, and democracy. But will Keir Starmer listen?

The dangers of “Bossware” at the Labour conference

After a nine-month investigation, the group has released the report Bossware: The dangers of high-tech worker surveillance & how to stop them. In the worst cases, it says, these practices include:

• Spyware recording every click and keystroke of desk workers, often on work from home devices in sectors including insurance and recruitment.
• Construction workers, forced to use biometric sign-ins and GPS tracking apps while on site
• National Express coach drivers subject to AI-powered “fatigue monitoring” while they’re at the wheel
• Office workers’ attendance monitored using Wi-Fi connection records
• Supermarket workers’ ‘pick rates’ and performance assessed by handheld computers

Big Brother Watch has been “working alongside some of the UK’s largest trade unions” to finalise some recommendations that could limit the most offensive aspects of workplace surveillance. But that will require putting pressure on Keir Starmer’s Labour Party government to implement them. These suggestions are:

• Legally require employers to be more transparent about high risk workplace surveillance and to consult staff and unions before introducing it
• Update data protection law to protect workers from automated decisions being made about them
• Make AI bias testing mandatory and make employers proactively responsible for using discriminatory algorithms
• Prevent employee tracking from being used to ratchet performance targets or for disciplinaries without good reason
• Ban so-called “emotion-recognition” surveillance from workplaces
• More guidance should be published by the UK’s privacy regulator, the ICO, to protect workers from surveillance

Excessive surveillance “directly undermines the democratic health of the country”

In a campaign email, the group insisted that:

Excessive workplace surveillance can breach individuals’ data and privacy rights, but it also directly undermines the democratic health of the country.

It added:

We need to get the message out that power imbalances in the workplace leave workers particularly vulnerable to having their data rights infringed upon.

Big Brother Watch is hosting the launch of its report at the Labour conference:

🔔Tomorrow: We're launching a groundbreaking NEW REPORT on workplace snooping at #LabConf24

🗓️23 Sept at 3pm
📍Hilton, Liverpool
🎙️@DawnButlerBrent | @silkiecarlo | @IWGBunion | @FutureWorkInst

Get your ticket now ⤵️https://t.co/EbbmuCREC7 pic.twitter.com/mVdjnUGQ5E

— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) September 22, 2024

However, given the party is in thrall to bosses, it is unclear whether Starmer and Co will listen or not.

For more, check out the full report or their video on 5 ways your boss could be spying on you at work:

Featured image via Big Brother Watch and the Canary