Amongst the frenzy of Black Friday, leaked Amazon documents present a possible contravention of Australia’s surveillance laws.

Amazon’s Global Security Operations Centre recently revealed that the corporate giant utilises several global surveillance strategies to spy on its employees, particularly those involved in labour/warehouse work and union-organising activities. To achieve this, Amazon was said to have hired the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency to collect data on employees and monitor their behaviour.

According to a key Australian union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDAEA), such surveillance tactics could potentially pose a breach to Australian freedom of association laws. Although, Amazon’s representatives claim that their measures fall in line with local surveillance laws and are enforced in a manner to maintain the security of its internal operations.

Local Australian laws such as the Workplace Surveillance Act (NSW), require, in many cases, that certain notifications are issued prior to workplace surveillance being conducted.

However, there are arguments that ‘the current laws around workplace surveillance haven’t kept up with technology’ . Evidently, technology has created a myriad of gaps and bypasses in the current local regime.   The SDAEA contends that “Workplace surveillance laws must be updated to prohibit monitoring of lawful industrial activity, to account for new technologies and where necessary to permit the extra jurisdictional operation of such laws.”

The NSW Parliament’s Select Committee on the impact of technological and other changes on the future of work and workers in New South Wales is investigating the impact of technology in the workforce and will be holding its next hearings in February and March 2021 to assess future measures.