Thousands of employees at one of the world’s largest call center companies are opposed to being monitored by webcams to find out if they are eating, looking at their phones or leaving their desks while working from home, the Guardian has learned.
As a sign of potential battles ahead for the surveillance of remote workers following the pandemic, Teleperformance – which employs around 380,000 people in 34 countries and counting dozens of major UK companies and government departments among their clients – some employees have been told that special webcams will be equipped to look for homework “breaks”.
While these are used in part for team meetings and training, the cameras are also connected to an artificial intelligence system that randomly monitors for violations of work rules during movement. If one is found, a photo will still be sent to a manager and stored for up to 20 days, according to documents sent to employees.
If employees have to leave their desks, for example to get a drink, they have to click “break mode” in an app to explain why, for example, “get water”, so that a break is not reported.
Eating while on the move is not permitted, staff will be advised. “If the system does not detect a keyboard stroke or mouse click, it will show you that you are idle for that particular time, and your supervisor will be notified. So try not to hinder your productivity. “
A training video on the webcam system, seen by the Guardian, states that it “monitors and monitors employee behavior in real time and detects any breaches of business rules preset, and sending real-time alerts to managers to take immediate corrective action ”.
This move elicited warnings from unions and MPs about normalizing home surveillance with employers as more and more workers move away from being office-based.
The revelations surfaced after some 10,000 Teleperformance UK staff were told that cameras, including the AI-based scanning system, would be installed next month for staff to continue working from home.
Speaking to the Guardian, the company said the remote scans would not be used in the UK. Webcams for UK staff could not be operated remotely and would only be used for meetings and training, and for recorded video calls when supervisors were checking desks for devices. which was not allowed for data security reasons, such as phones, a spokesman said.
Levels of remote sensing would vary in other countries, he said.
Although not a household name, the French-based company is one of the world’s largest providers of outsourced telephone services, including customer support, tele- marketing and technical support.
In Britain its clients include the UK government’s health and education departments, NHS Digital, the Student Loans Company, the RAF and the Royal Navy. The companies he works for include Vodafone, eBay, Aviva, Volkswagen and the Guardian. There is no suggestion that any of these were aware of or involved in the design of the new monitoring system.
Teleperformance is understood to be spreading the full webcam monitoring system in other countries where it operates. The company declined to say whether any of its UK clients use employees based elsewhere who may be under investigation.
According to documents and video, at random times during a move, the webcam system scans the workplace for violations, which include “missing from the desktop”, “finding a person- subtle use ”,“ unauthorized mobile phone use ”and having someone else in the workplace.
The cameras will also be set up with face recognition to see if someone else is sitting at the desk. Staff are informed: “Any breach detected by the AI will provide the supervisor with real-time warning for further action. ”
The company’s literature acknowledges that family or other family members cannot be kept completely away from workplaces, and said that managers would not take action if their presence was detected “as long as the people in the background are not watching. into the screen, or very close to it ”. To avoid this, staff are asked to place their screens in front of a wall.
Employees working at night are asked to make sure their desk lights are strong enough to ensure the camera can see what is happening.
Howard Beckett, Unite’s deputy general secretary, said the union would “fight legally and industrially to thwart attempts to normalize home inspection”.
Andy McDonald, the shadow minister for employment rights, said that especially when companies relied on homeworkers to keep them going, it was wrong to “implement aggressive vigilance that erodes the their rights to privacy and which create an environment of fear and trust ”.
After the Guardian asked Teleperformance about the concerns of UK workers, a senior manager contacted staff to explain that they would not be monitored at random, adding that it was “extremely disappointing” that the media were warned and this was considered to be gross misconduct. It is not clear why UK staff were first told to expect the complete inspection system.
A spokesman for Teleperformance said the company wanted to discuss any concerns with employees and that the webcam system was intended to “respond to major concerns of loneliness, lack of team involvement and support, without to see a person from one day to the next, taken by those at home ”.
She said: “We trust them to do the job professionally. We truly accept the concerns you have raised… because they cannot be further from the truth. ”
No employees would be forced to work from home, the spokesman said, and discussions would take place to encourage them. However, it was “extremely important that our staff work in a secure home office environment to meet the expectations of our customers and customers in terms of a high level of protection when it comes to processing the business. their personal data, including sensitive personal data, ”she said.