This guidance discusses the monitoring of workers by employers, and how this interacts with data protection. It is primarily aimed at employers. The guidance aims to:

• help provide greater regulatory certainty;
• protect workers’ data protection rights; and
• help employers to build trust with workers, customers and service users.

The guidance provides clarity and practical advice to help employers to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). It assumes some knowledge of data protection, but provides links to other pieces of key data protection guidance, if you want to find out more information…

Excessive monitoring can have an adverse impact on the data protection rights and freedoms of workers. Excessive monitoring is likely to intrude into workers’ private lives and undermine their privacy and mental wellbeing. It is not always easy to distinguish between workplace and private information, especially when workers are based at home. Some workers may also use personal devices for work. Monitoring communications between a worker and their union representative or capturing a worker’s personal correspondence both give rise to significant concerns…