Are you being 'key-stroke tracked?'

Snooping technology leads to cops being sacked - could you be next?

Two Avon & Somerset police officers have been sacked for gross misconduct in the last two months for faking working from home after being caught by ‘keystroke tracking’.

But what exactly is it, how does it work, and is it even legal or ethical?

Here we explain the process following the two police misconduct hearings that resulted in the dismissal of former Yeovil PC Liam Reakes on Monday, June 9, who weighed down the ‘z’ key on his laptop keyboard for over 100 hours in total from June to September last year.

A subsequent investigation found that he had been doing this since September 2023.

The panel’s ruling, that the officer would have been dismissed had he not already resigned, followed a similar case in April when Bridgwater-based Detective Constable Philippa Baskwill was also found to have committed gross misconduct and was fired without notice.

The force’s professional standards department discovered she weighed down keyboard characters on her work laptop at home with her mobile phone for more than 46 hours over 15 shifts, with monitoring software showing her number of keystrokes rocketed from two million in 2022 to 21million the following year.

Asked how the cases came to light, Avon & Somerset Police told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It was a forcewide audit carried out for the first time last year, which flagged up the cases of concern regarding substantially higher keystrokes.

“A professional standards investigation would then follow.”

The use of keystroke tracking software has become much more widespread since the pandemic and the rise of remote working.

It records every key that a user presses on a computer and can be used by firms and organisations for cybersecurity purposes to thwart hackers and prevent unauthorised access.

But concerns have been raised that this effectively allows an employer to ‘spy’ on staff working from home and amounts to unethical electronic surveillance.

Last September, The Week reported that multinational accounting giant PwC would start tracking where its UK staff were logging in from, with one commentator describing it as the ‘latest in a series of increasingly sinister salvos’ in the workplace.

Another branded it ‘bone chilling, Black Mirror-level stuff’.

The previous year, a survey of 1,000 business leaders in the US by ResumeBuilder.com found 96 per cent of respondents at companies that have remote or hybrid working set-ups said employees were subject to some form of monitoring, with workers at five per cent of these being unaware it was happening.

Staff monitoring was in place at just 10 per cent of American firms before Covid-19.

It’s not just keystroke-tracking, though. Over a third said staff were required to be on a live video feed, whether from home or in the office, and that this was monitored.

About three-quarters of firms had sacked employees as a result of the surveillance technology.

Under UK law, bosses can monitor workers but it must be proportionate and necessary and they must inform staff and respect privacy rights.

They must also comply with data protection legislation.

A blog by a solicitor on an HR consultancy website last month said guidance issued in October 2023 by data regulator the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about businesses monitoring staff stated any tracking must take place in the ‘least intrusive’ way possible.

The advice said employees must be told clearly of the ‘nature, extent and reasons for monitoring’.

The ICO can take enforcement action against companies that carry out ‘excessive’ surveillance that results in a breach of privacy rights.

Categories: Policing Crime Tribunals
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