By Kanishka Singh
Aug 9 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc is being probed by
the United Kingdom's privacy watchdog, the Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO), over allegations that the British
bank spied on its staff, the agency said on Sunday.
Earlier this year, Barclays said it was changing a system
that the bank was piloting, which tracked how employees spent
their time at work, after critical media reports accused the
bank of spying on its staff.
The ICO said on Sunday a formal probe was ongoing but it
could not say when the investigation would conclude.
"People expect that they can keep their personal lives
private and that they are also entitled to a degree of privacy
in the workplace," an ICO spokesman said.
"If organisations wish to monitor their employees, they
should be clear about its purpose and that it brings real
benefits. Organisations also need to make employees aware of the
nature, extent and reasons for any monitoring", he added.
The probe was reported earlier by The Sunday Telegraph
newspaper.
Late in February, Barclays said it was changing how it used
the Sapience software so it would now track only anonymised
data, in response to staff feedback that the system was
intrusive.
Sapience gives companies "insights into work patterns" and
tracks employee productivity by monitoring their computer usage,
according to its website.
Such systems are becoming increasingly common among banks
and other financial firms, which use voice recognition and other
behaviour-tracking tools to watch for unusual behaviour that
could indicate misconduct.
In 2017, Barclays faced widespread criticism when it rolled
out a system known as OccupEye, which tracked how long people
spent at their desks.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan
Oatis)
Barclays (BARC)