Thursday, September 03, 2009

Monitoring the Work Place

Some monitoring of staff activities in the workplace may be reasonable to ensure that staff are performing their duties and using resources appropriately. Where the monitoring includes retention of a record of the staff activity e.g. a CCTV video recording or a computer record of emails or a web surfing trail, then the privacy principles in the Privacy Act may apply.

Generally, monitoring of staff's use of email, the internet and other computer resources, where staff have been advised about that monitoring, would be allowed. The Office has issued advisory guidelines on Workplace Email, Web Browsing and Privacy. These recommend steps that organisations can take to ensure that their staff understand the organisation's position on this issue through the development of clear policies.

There are some other laws that deal specifically with the use of surveillance or listening devices. For example the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) relates to rules around intercepting telephone communications.

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