Bell Canada: spying on employees

p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Bell Canada mobile technicians are on the verge of lodging a formal complaint with the federal Privacy Commissioner.

They say Bell Canada is spying on them.

The company is a lot like the corporate record labels and movie studios. There’s no limit to how low it’ll go with respect to the people who work for it, and the people who keep it in business.

“Memo came down today all Bell vans to have gps installed by end of year and it will be imperative that the devices remain functional at all times and not be disconnected,” says bell grunt in dslreports, “so I guess I’ll have lunch and my coffee break in your driveway”.

As far back as three years ago, “Employers need to carefully consider the privacy rights of their workers before installing Global Positioning Systems (GPS) into their vehicle fleets, said Canadian federal privacy commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart.

Is GPS monitoring an invasion of privacy, or merely a commonsense measure that’s in the interests of both employer and employee?

And what if the monitoring is taken a step further and remote surveillance cameras are secretly hidden in vehicles?

Union leader Sean Howes has no doubts.

In a May 4 letter to Paul Robert, Bell Canada director of labour relations, “It has come to the attention of the CEP … that Bell has recently engaged in video surveillance of technicians,” says Howes, National Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada representative, going on »»»

The CEP understands that cameras were secretly installed in the technicians’ vehicles and monitored their actions during their working hours.

These actions have been undertaken without any advance notice to the Union or to affected employees.   Such a course of contact is morally repugnant. It is also a destructive of labour relations and employee morale.

The actions undertaken by Bell Canada are a violation of the Collective Agreement,  contrary to established jurisprudence, and also a violation of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

The CEP is now demanding Bell Canada gives details of the extent of its spy operation, who the victims are, why the surveillance was undertaken, and how long it’s been going on for.

“The CEP is considering initiating a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner in connection with this matter, and a failure to respond will certainly encourage the CEP to do so,” it says.

Definitely stay tuned.