Tracked at work 14 January 2020 at 7:27PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in Employment, Jobseeking & Training 15 replies 1.7K views

TELLIT01

My brother-in-law works for Royal Mail and the new generation PDA's they will be getting can be tracked. Employees aren't too happy but there's not much they can do about it.

JReacher1

There is nothing wrong with tracking your employees. Some places make you “clock in” and “clock out” of your place of work to prove you’re there. This is just a more advanced way of doing that.

I was watching my amazon courier yesterday as he travelled to my house with my parcel. If tracking was illegal this wouldn’t be allowed.

Basically when you’re at work there is nothing wrong with your employer wanting to know where you are.

Ozzuk

Blatchford wrote: »

Because the definition of personal data isn't about simply identifying individuals but about legitimate ownership of the information. If you are working on your employers employer's computer then what you are doing is not your personal data. If you doubt that, download a load of porn and see how that works out for you.

Actually for once you aren't quite right on this. Under the ICO the definition of personal data is anything that can identify an individual - so for a computer logon it could be logon account or IP address.

IMO the tracking isn't illegal, however as you can likely identify the individual (or what would be the point) then it would indeed be personal data. This isn't an issue though, it would be very easy for the company to supply a reason why they needed this data, and it would need to be included in the company privacy policy and staff should be made aware (and give consent). There is also provision under GDPR that you must make it easy to not give consent - but the counter would be no consent, no employment.

Downloading porn would come under the computer misuse act 1990.

ohreally

What is the purpose and scope of the monitoring?

If large employer, what has been the union feedback?

custardy

TELLIT01 wrote: »

My brother-in-law works for Royal Mail and the new generation PDA's they will be getting can be tracked. Employees aren't too happy but there's not much they can do about it.

Your BIL is a little behind the times.
PDA 'actuals' is on this gen of PDAs its live and has been for many months.
Trimble monitors vehicles and PDAs monitor the full time they are logged in.