... they may be monitored. 'They have effectively given in to all of the pressures from industry', says James Davies, an employment partner at Lewis Silkin, the law firm. But this apparent victory for employers may prove a somewhat Pyrrhic one. A draft code on workplace surveillance being published this week by the Data Protection Commissioner, the privacy watchdog, places much tighter constraints on employers. Companies engaging in unreasonable or blanket snooping could face enforcement action from the Commissioner. They also risk being taken to court. The unions have threatened to back an early challenge to surveillance by using the Human Rights Act, which enshrined the right to respect for privacy into UK law on October 2. This new legal right might appear to sit uneasily with the mass of surveillance techniques used by business. Insurers routinely employ private detectives to snoop on people they suspect of fraud, citing cases such ...

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