Accused of going off site during my shift CCTV involved

jlemaitre

I (partner using my account) worked a 01:00-15:30 shift last week. 6 hours preshift overtime as the building sprinkler house pumps failed.
I stepped up to help as the company needed someone to be a watchmen whilst no one was on site for any fires/alarms. no one wanted to do it.

I arrived at 00:50 and did the usual unlocking and checking at the sametime. i never left site and i even sat in my car metres away from a panel. There is CCTV all over the site.
All was fine i did the hours and there was no fires. 2 colleagues arrived at 7am to start their shift, alongside me, who had already got the site ready.
It turns out at roughly 09:45 these 2 people took it upon themselves to spy on my by entering the security office and go through all the footage of the night. The cheered with excitement when they spotted me and noted times they couldnt see me.

With this data in hand they reported to management(family) that i left site and have an unexplained time i wasnt seen(I sat under the CCTV camera in my car next to the door.)

They got another person involved and told him i must have left site but he could see my car and obviously they'd see me enter my car to sit in it listening to music. He told them they dont have SIA licence to what they are doing and shouldnt be spying on me. they had ignored his advise and handed over a document to management of their findings.
its caused a big ruckus in the workplace and those who stand with me are not happy. i'm due to have a HR meeting with management and and person of my choice.

The claim seems to be, they have proof i left site(I have dashcam in my car, auto record and movement/parking mode) I have no recordings of my car moving or of myself driving. They think i went home to sleep. I have CCTV at home, and theres no footage of me going home. Obviously no footage because i didnt leave site. theres assumptions i went somewhere to sleep. I live 10 mins from work. if i wanted to i'd have wanted to drive home and sleep.

There seems to be various laws about spying and CCTV in the workplace. Cameras are scattered all over the place without signs stating where they are.

I'd like to go into this meeting armed with some info I can fire back as i feel my privacy rights have been abused i feel sick knowing my colleagues have been sitting at the desk watching me work at night on my own, go out their way to try and make my name dirt.

Any advise on how i should approach the meeting and what and what i shouldnt say. 

Marcon

Keep the emotion out of it, particularly don't use words like 'spying' and 'invasion of privacy'. Stick to the facts in the calmest fashion you can manage. Firing back, as you put it, is likely to get you fired.

oh_really

What motivated your colleagues to do this, is there history? Does your employer own the electronic data - who is the data controller and what have they got to say about this?

What is the purpose of the upcoming meeting, is it investigatory or a disciplinary?

Please say your a union member!

A_Lert

My 2 pence also. Stick to the facts. That you were on site during your shift, that there are gaps in the CCTV coverage which is why you weren't always visible, and that they cannot produce any evidence of you leaving. Don't agree to any "warnings" about things you didn't do or relating to policies you were not informed of. (Edit: And don't sign anything without thoroughly reading it, of course.)

Save your grievance or counter-complaint for an appropriate time.

JReacher1

People don’t just go through over 8 hours of CCTV footage for the craic. There must be more to this story.  It would be weird for a company to try and fire someone who agreed to work extra hours to help them out due to an unexpected crisis. 

Manxman_in_exile

jlemaitre said:

I (partner using my account) worked a 01:00-15:30 shift last week. 6 hours preshift overtime as the building sprinkler house pumps failed.
I stepped up to help as the company needed someone to be a watchmen whilst no one was on site for any fires/alarms. no one wanted to do it.

I arrived at 00:50 and did the usual unlocking and checking at the sametime. i never left site and i even sat in my car metres away from a panel. There is CCTV all over the site.
All was fine i did the hours and there was no fires. 2 colleagues arrived at 7am to start their shift, alongside me, who had already got the site ready.
It turns out at roughly 09:45 these 2 people took it upon themselves to spy on my by entering the security office and go through all the footage of the night. The cheered with excitement when they spotted me and noted times they couldnt see me.

With this data in hand they reported to management(family) that i left site and have an unexplained time i wasnt seen(I sat under the CCTV camera in my car next to the door.)

They got another person involved and told him i must have left site but he could see my car and obviously they'd see me enter my car to sit in it listening to music. He told them they dont have SIA licence to what they are doing and shouldnt be spying on me. they had ignored his advise and handed over a document to management of their findings.
its caused a big ruckus in the workplace and those who stand with me are not happy. i'm due to have a HR meeting with management and and person of my choice.

The claim seems to be, they have proof i left site(I have dashcam in my car, auto record and movement/parking mode) I have no recordings of my car moving or of myself driving. They think i went home to sleep. I have CCTV at home, and theres no footage of me going home. Obviously no footage because i didnt leave site. theres assumptions i went somewhere to sleep. I live 10 mins from work. if i wanted to i'd have wanted to drive home and sleep.

There seems to be various laws about spying and CCTV in the workplace. Cameras are scattered all over the place without signs stating where they are.

I'd like to go into this meeting armed with some info I can fire back as i feel my privacy rights have been abused i feel sick knowing my colleagues have been sitting at the desk watching me work at night on my own, go out their way to try and make my name dirt.

Any advise on how i should approach the meeting and what and what i shouldnt say. 

Your two colleagues went through the CCTV coverage of the whole night-shift, and they both "cheered" when they thought they'd spotted you going off site?

Who was doing their work while they were trawling through 8 hours of night-time CCTV, and why would they "cheer"?  (How do you know they did?)

Obviously much more to this than you are saying

I'd be asking my employer why my two colleagues had been authorised to view this CCTV coverage instead of doing their jobs (except... there must be more to this than meets the eye... )

nicechap

I presume your dashcam doesn't record people entering or exiting your car, so of more reliance would be your phone's GPS record for the time period they are investigating - are you happy to share that if requested? Unless the cctv actually shows you leaving site, it's pretty meaningless as From what you've said it's absence of evidence of you leaving site.

if unauthorised and untrained people have accessed your personal data (I.e. cctv) then that could form the basis of an internal grievance and an external complaint to ICO but that would be separate from the investigation currently underway.

what puzzles me is how would you know they were cheering when they were watching the cctv?  Investigations and grievances are not popularity contests, they are there to ensure the company runs smoothly, including avoiding malicious and time wasting employment tribunals, as well as being fair to staff within company policies.

jlemaitre

I found out all this has been blown out of proportion because someone with mental illness had come back to work that week after 7 months off. he planned to stir things up. he has made a second statement and has changed his statement from sleeping in my car to sitting in my car..... no idea why he did that and is fuming theyve told me he has been swapping and changing bits of details out. 

Nothing has happened of this accusation, because quite frankly there is nothing to say or hide. Yes my work phone has GPS and thats a valid point i didnt think of. So when and if a meeting takes place i can offer my phone data as proof.

I found out about the cheering from an engineer who walked in on them, they didnt realise he was in the room until it was too late for them and he saw what they were doing. They tried to hide what they were viewing from him. The 2nd highest manager is aware of what happened and is not happy about them at all. The top manager has promised me to trust the company way and this will be brushed aside. the 3rd highest is the one who was presented the lack of evidence. both other parties are no bodies, just the same as me. Ironically they shot themselves in the foot as they were checked upon their working hours via cctv and by paperwork.

As for doing their work that would ironically be me.... i wondered why i was doing all the work that morning.

not overly sure why many have questioned theres more than meets the eye of my doing. very bad to assume....seems just as bad as those who watched me work during the night.

Stigy

For the record, staff don't necessarily need a specific CCTV SIA Licence (or any SIA licence for that matter) to review CCTV footage in the same way control room/security staff do to monitor CCTV as part of their job.

Stigy

jlemaitre said:

not overly sure why many have questioned theres more than meets the eye of my doing. very bad to assume....seems just as bad as those who watched me work during the night.

That's probably because it sounds from your tone as if there's some history here with your colleagues? It's not often that people will just try and stitch others up in the workplace without their reasons, be they right or wrong.

jlemaitre

Nope very strange one. nowt but the truth here..... Ironically 4 weeks later and still nothing, like its been swept under the carpet. Maybe they knew its a bunch of hearsay and knew they couldnt accuse me of anything. Theres some strange human beings in this world who like to cause a rukus.

I'll end this thread as of now as there's clearly nothing going on.