Can my employer conduct covert monitoring where I work?

Covert monitoring means monitoring deliberately carried out in secret, so that staff who are being monitored are unaware of it. Covert monitoring is very difficult for an employer to justify, and should only be used in exceptional circumstances. Your employer must have genuine suspicions of criminal activity, and that notifying individuals about the monitoring would prejudice the prevention or detection of the criminal activity.

Monitoring must be strictly targeted at obtaining evidence within a set timeframe, and within the boundaries of the suspected criminal activity. This means that it must not continue after the investigation is complete, and that any other information collected during this time should be disregarded, unless it reveals information that no employer could reasonably be expected to ignore.