Cybersnooping legislation regulates when it will be permissible for employers to monitor the electronic activities — such as email, web surfing and outbound data transmissions — of their employees. Currently, however, the regimes adopted among the states differ widely, making it all but impossible for national employers to confidently establish a uniform monitoring protocol:

‘NSW introduced the Workplace Surveillance Act in October last year,’ says Minna Knight, senior adviser on workplace relations for employer group Australian Business Ltd.

‘Victoria has proposed its own rules which are completely different to NSW in parts.’

Employers and the federal Government are hoping for harmonisation on workplace surveillance rules nationwide. But Knight is not hopeful on what she has seen to date. The NSW legislation has not only given its employers new rules, but has given rise to a need to develop a new policy that states exactly what a boss wants to do with respect to the computers he supplies to his employees.

Make no bones about it, this is more red tape.

And, worse still, because the Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 (NSW) (‘WSA’) is new, the law has not been tested. This means that what might look like a fair policy for an employer to impose on workers could prove to be wrong — in a court of law, along with all its costs.

Fortunately — for employees, at least — the current tendency is to err on the side of caution.