"Dangerously out of date" — UTS report calls for urgent tech-enabled worker surveillance reforms

To protect workers against harmful tech-enabled surveillance, and to give employers clarity about what is reasonable monitoring of workers for safety and other legitimate reasons, a report — Drawing the Line: Tech-enabled surveillance of Australian workers — by the UTS Human Technology Institute (HTI) was released in October 2026, calling on the Australian Government to update the Fair Work Act.

“Whether driving a truck, sitting at a desk or sorting supermarket shelves, workers are being subjected to more invasive forms of surveillance. Often workers simply don’t know that the computers, mobile phones and other tech they rely on can also be used to monitor and surveil them,” HTI Co-Director Professor Edward Santow said.

“Yet our laws are dangerously out of date. They don’t protect workers from harmful forms of surveillance, and nor do they give clarity to employers about what forms of monitoring are acceptable.”

Specifically, the report recommends that the Act be amended to require that any worker-monitoring be ‘fair and reasonable’ — something that, UTS said, builds on the government’s existing commitment to require that all personal information covered by the Privacy Act must be handled ‘fairly and reasonably’.

The HTI’s proposed reform would ensure privacy protections that apply in other aspects of our lives also would apply when people go to work, UTS said. “Right now, employers typically rely on workers ‘consenting’ to being monitored when they sign their employment contract,” said Sarah Sacher, Senior Responsible Technology Policy Specialist at HTI.

“But we all know that’s not real consent. If you need the job, you’re in no place to debate what is reasonable monitoring with your prospective employer,” Sacher added. “Introducing a requirement to act fairly and reasonably in the Fair Work Act would set clear guardrails for employers about monitoring workers, and would do so in a system that workers and employers understand well.”

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According to UTS, HTI’s proposed reforms would:

• ensure that enterprise bargaining agreements and Modern Awards can build on the protections in the proposed ‘fair and reasonable’ requirement;
• set up a dedicated complaints stream in the Fair Work Commission to hear privacy-related complaints; and
• support regulators to issue clear and practical guidance on how to apply new and existing laws in the worker surveillance context.
   

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“Workplace surveillance has gone from a sign-in sheet to algorithms putting a digital leash around employees’ necks,” Senator Tony Sheldon said on the issue of workplace surveillance. “Big Tech bros like Amazon are already using AI and technology to turn their workforce into inmates in digital warehouse prisons.

“This report raises critical concerns about the impact of workplace surveillance on the privacy, health and dignity of working Australians, particularly when many employees don’t even know they’re being monitored,” Sheldon added.

You can read the report at www.uts.edu.au/globalassets/shared-media/documents/_mcu/media/uts_hti-worker-surveillance-report_web.pdf.

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