Guarding the Guards: The Right to Privacy, and Workplace Surveillance and Monitoring in Policing

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the use of communication and computer technology to surveil and monitor the performance and activity of police officers. First, while I argue that there is an in-principle difference between police officers and most other occupations in relation to workplace monitoring and surveillance, there is also a sameness, viz. police officers retain their individual right to privacy in the workplace. Second, combating crime and corruption in the workplace depends on the desire to do good and avoid evil on the part of those monitored and surveilled. Unjustified, covert, and intrusive monitoring and surveillance will undermine trust and ultimately undermine the attempt to combat crime and corruption. Third, notwithstanding the development of a variety of useful methods of monitoring and surveillance to deal with the problem of policing the police, an in-principle problem of guarding the guards remains.