Monitoring and security of staff

Set up monitoring policies

See our guide on how to set up employment policies for your business .

Use of electronic communications

A policy on electronic communications should cover use of email, Internet access, telephone, mobile phone and fax. It should set out the standards expected for business use and the extent of personal use. It should also cover confidentiality of communications and the purpose and methods of monitoring the use of equipment.

You may wish to instruct staff to mark personal emails as private or personal in the title so that you can try to avoid opening them during monitoring procedures.

You may also find it useful to give guidance on the:

• pitfalls of email
• use of appropriate language
• importing of viruses
• use of inappropriate websites
• use of disclaimers

Staff should receive appropriate training to use business equipment in compliance with the monitoring policy.

Find information on the Lawful Business Practice Regulations at the DTI website .

Monitoring the use of business vehicles

Set out rules and standards for business use and the conditions and extent of personal use. Technology increasingly allows for company vehicles to be monitored. Tachographs and satellite tracking systems can record vehicle location, distances covered and related information about users' driving habits. This monitoring process will be regulated by the Data Protection Act 1998.

Inform all employees who drive company vehicles about the monitoring policy. The policy should state what private use can be made of vehicles and the conditions attached to it. Where private use of a vehicle is allowed, monitoring its movements when used privately without the freely given consent of the user will rarely be justified. If possible provide a privacy button or similar arrangement to enable monitoring to be disabled when a vehicle is for private use.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Why you might monitor your staff and what monitoring includes
• When an employer is allowed to monitor staff
• Set up monitoring policies
• The right ways to monitor your staff
• The laws and penalties for improper monitoring
• Checklist of monitoring issues
• Staff security - your responsibilities as an employer

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