Seminar series

This seminar explored the conditions of ethical and lawful monitoring of employee workplace practices for the purposes of identifying risk of poor physical and mental health.

It addressed the boundaries of legitimate/illegitimate monitoring and considered how employee trust and confidence in the benefits of monitoring may be achieved whilst avoiding the dis-benefits. It explored how employees might be ethically and lawfully monitored for the purposes of safeguarding employee health through understanding the legal and ethical requirements.

Speakers

• Dr Mark J Taylor, the University of Sheffield; ‘Introduction to seminar and framing the use of big data for wellbeing from ethical and legal perspective’

• Dr Tom Calvard, University of Edinburgh; ‘The quantified self’

• Professor Graeme Laurie, University of Edinburgh; ‘Principles of good data governance’

• Professor David Townend, University of Maastricht; ‘How far can law on its own create an environment of trust and confidence especially for people who feel vulnerable?’

• Dr Mark Butler, Lancaster University; ‘Implied trust and confidence’

Materials

Presentations and media from the fifth seminar.

Dr Mark Taylor

Introduction to seminar and framing the use of big data for wellbeing from ethical and legal perspective

• Dr Mark Taylor’s presentation (PDF, 3.2MB)

• Interview with Dr Mark Taylor

Professor David Townend

How far can Law on its own create an environment of trust and confidence especially for people who feel vulnerable?

• Professor David Townend’s presentation (PDF, 336KB)

• Interview with Professor David Townend

Abstract:

Professor Townend is to consider the following questions:

1. What is the nature of the problem? What does a vulnerable employee need to feel confident enough to ask for help? (Especially where the difficulties might be employment related, either by an unreasonable employer, or through a weakness in the employee.)

2. Legal Protections outside employment Law?

   • Does data protection Law (especially the GDPR) give sufficient protection about personal data?

   • Can fiduciary duties help us?

3. What are the legitimate expectations of employees (with different sorts of difficulties)?

   • What might legitimate claims on the information in the personal data be for the employer?

   • What are the responsibilities of the shareholders?

4. What sort of safeguards might work?

Dr Mark Butler

Implied trust and confidence

• Dr Mark Butler’s presentation (PDF, 293KB)

• Interview with Dr Mark Butler

Abstract:

Dr Butler is to consider the implications of implied term of trust and confidence, health and safety issues (including work-related stress issues under Walker and Hatton) and matters relating to the Equality Act.

Dr Tom Calvard

The Quantified Self

• Dr Tom Calvard’s presentation (PDF, 938KB)

• Interview with Dr Tom Calvard

Abstract:

Dr Calvard will discuss the ethical issues around greater digital monitoring of employee health by reviewing theory and research on the concept of ‘the quantified self’.

On the one hand, if employees are allowed to own, measure, understand and participate in gathering and analysing digital information about themselves, quantifying the self should be empowering and beneficial to their health.

On the other hand, there are likely to always be wider structural concerns about how this data is used and related back to power imbalances in the context of employment relationships, in terms of how the data is shared, interpreted, contextualised and acted upon beyond the individual.

This presentation argues that one way forward in managing these tensions is to theorise the quantified self as representing a process of embodied sense-making, emphasising the importance of interpreting health data flexibly and reflexively in ways that are socially and politically acceptable to a range of stakeholders.

In doing so, the presentation draws further on the work of various digital sociologists and historians of data and science to critically understand the emergence of a ‘statistical-digital employee self’ made up of highly personalised physical and mental health information.

Professor Graeme Laurie

Principles of Good Data Governance

• Professor Graeme Laurie’s presentation (PDF, 342KB)

• Interview with Professor Graeme Laurie

Abstract:

Professor Laurie will reflect on the transferability and applicability to routinely collected employee data of principles of good data governance developed for the health sector through extensive multi-disciplinary collaboration.