Big Brother in the office; Workers’ rights, AI and surveillance in 2024

Workers in the UK are under increasingly heavy surveillance from their bosses and their employers.

Significant advances in the sophistication of technology, falling costs and the shift to home working during the pandemic have all seen a dramatic increase in bosses snooping on their staff.

At its worst, this has included supermarket workers’ ‘pick rates’ being assessed by handheld computers, mandatory biometric sign-in for builders at construction sites, office workers’ attendance monitored using Wi-Fi connection records and data analytics company Teramind’s terrifying spyware allowing our every click and keystroke to be recorded.

But Big Brother Watch is pushing back. Join us for the launch of our new report, which draws on workers’ experiences, trade union views and analysis of the surveillance products on the market in the UK to illustrate a broad cross-section of employer surveillance in the digital age.

As the new Labour Government plans the introduction of legislation to protect workers’ rights in the UK our report also includes a set of policy and legislative recommendations, developed alongside many of the UK’s major trade unions, which would turn the tide on rising workplace surveillance in the UK.

Chairing the event is Silkie Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch, with speakers including Labour MP for Peterborough, Andrew Pakes, Bill Taylor of the Communication Workers Union, Khalid Edah-Tally of the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain and Anna Thomas from the Institute for the Future of Work.

This is an official Labour Party conference event taking place outside of the secure zone, therefore conference passes are not needed in order to attend.

About Big Brother Watch

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change. And we fight to win.

We’re a fiercely independent, diverse, non-partisan and non-profit group of campaigners and researchers, who work to roll back the surveillance state and protect rights in parliament, the media, and the courts if we have to. We publish unique investigations and pursue powerful public campaigns to pursue real change. We work relentlessly to inform and empower the public to collectively reclaim privacy, defend our civil liberties, and protect freedoms for the future.

Big Brother Watch will be hosting events during Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat party conferences. Find our updates on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

For more information about this event or our work more broadly, please contact us: [email protected]

Host or Publisher Big Brother Watch