ABSTRACT
Monitoring and surveillance has been a fundamental aspect of the employee relationship for centuries. This chapter looks at the level, intensity, impact and effects of electronic monitoring and surveillance on work, the worker and the workplace and how, in a vacuum of legislation. It illustrates the rapid rise of electronic monitoring and surveillance (EMS), which has created and is creating new problems and complexities surrounding the development of work and work relationships as it moves apace in the 21st century. It is clear that the intensity and depth of EMS continues ahead of legal guidelines across the world and across state boundaries. The nature and rise of EMS of employees has emerged at such a rapid rate that it has left the law, ethics and the management of the employment relationship trailing in its wake in terms of understanding how such changes are impacting on our day-to-day working lives and how they should be managed.
