ACAS Warns About Workplace Monitoring. What Does the Data Prove?

If an employer relies on monitoring data in a performance warning or disciplinary allegation, you need to understand what was measured and how the employer reached its conclusion. A score or activity log does not explain how the result was reached.

ACAS submitted its response to the government's workplace monitoring consultation on 30 September 2026. It warns that poorly introduced monitoring can increase conflict, damage working relationships and create risks of bias and discrimination.

This is a policy response. It is not a new law or a finding that a particular employer has broken the law.

What concerns did ACAS identify?

The response discusses increased management control without sufficient worker consent, reduced autonomy, more intense work and poorer morale. It also raises concerns about algorithms repeating or increasing bias.

An algorithm is a set of rules used by software to process information. A system might turn attendance, location or activity records into a score. You still need to know what the score represents and whether a person checked the conclusion drawn from it.

ACAS connects badly introduced monitoring with individual and collective workplace conflict. Collective conflict concerns groups of workers, rather than only a dispute between one employee and a manager.

The response reports a 27% increase in Early Conciliation notifications in 2025 to 2026. That is ACAS's description of demand for its services. It does not establish that monitoring caused the increase or that 27% of monitored employees suffered unlawful treatment.

Separate the record from the allegation

A monitoring record may show that a device was inactive. Whether that establishes that you were not working depends on the work, the equipment and the information available. A performance allegation should be examined against the actual evidence, not only the label attached to a score.

Where monitoring is relied on, useful questions include:

• Which information was collected, and over what period?
• What policy or notice explained the monitoring?
• What does each measurement record, and what does it leave out?
• Did the employer check errors, missing information or relevant explanations?
• Was the decision made by a person, software, or a person relying on a software recommendation?
• How was the information used in the warning, assessment or disciplinary decision?

These questions help you examine the evidence. They do not mean that every employer has a new statutory duty to provide every item on request.

Monitoring is not automatically lawful or unlawful

An employment dispute may require analysis of the contract, the fairness of a disciplinary process, equality law and data protection obligations. Different rules can apply to collecting information and to using it in a decision.

Employee consent is not a shortcut to deciding the issue. Whether consent is freely given and whether another lawful basis applies need examination. ACAS's policy concern about consent is not a ruling that every monitoring arrangement is invalid.

If disability, a disability related absence or another protected characteristic is relevant, explain it and keep the documents showing what the employer knew. Do not assume that an unfavourable automated score alone establishes discrimination.

What is the consultation's status?

The government consultation closed at 11:59pm on 30 September. At this draft's verification date, the official page said responses were being analysed. The proposals and ACAS response should not be presented as binding new guidance.

Keep the warning, monitoring policy, available data extracts and correspondence explaining the decision.

Frances N.U