Almost half of all Aussie workplaces admit to using AI to spy on their employees. Here’s what you need to know

More than half of all Australian workplaces are using AI to spy on employees but although it is completely legal, they are obliged to tell you what they are up to, a human resources expert says.

The alarming figure comes from the survey Future of Work: Automation and AI released by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills last year.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Is Your boss spying on you?

It revealed 64 per cent of employers were using automated tools to assess employee performance, 58 per cent to monitor staff both in the office and 52 per cent to monitor staff working remotely.

The surveillance software, referred to as “bossware,” is being loaded onto employee laptops and allows employers to record how much time their staff spend on tasks, take screenshots of their monitor, and track websites they visit.

Across Australia, the use of the software is surging in popularity as bosses attempt to make remote staff more productive.

On Thursday, Employee Matters managing director, Natasha Hawker joined Nat and Shirvo on Sunrise where she spoke about the evolving use of the technology.

Hawker said bosses must tell you if they are using the surveillance software.

“It should be in your contract. You should sign it off in your contract that you are being surveilled,” Hawker said.

Hawker, who has run a remote business for the past 13 years, said the software was usually legal due to workplace contracts.

“(If) you have a huge amount of employees working from home you might now say, ‘if you want to continue to work from home, the caveat is that we are going to put this AI intel on your computer, so we can see how productive you are’,” she said.

The Herbert Smith Freehills survey reported that 38 per cent of employers suspected they would receive an increased number of complaints about the AI software in the future and considered it a “key trigger for (employee) activism”.

However, Hawker said there were both employee and staff benefits in using the software.

“Isolation might be an issue with people working from home and if you have an employee that has suddenly had great performance and dropped off, you might want to check in with them and see if they’re OK,” Hawker said.

Hawker said if employees had signed a contract, they had typically waived their right to complain.

“It comes back to that reasonableness test — is the employer doing this and is that reasonable?” she said.

“But if they’ve (the employer) signed their contract, they don’t have a lot of other options other than to leave.”