We want to hire a private investigator to monitor an employee who we suspect is submitting false timesheets, but I’m worried that the employee will say we are invading their privacy. How do I handle it?”

Amanda Espey writes:

The Information Commissioner’s Code of Practice on Employment Practices states that it will be rare for covert monitoring of employees to be justified. However, it is difficult for employers who suspect their employees of such activities to prove that this is happening without using covert surveillance.

The issue of covert surveillance was explored recently by the EAT in the case of City and County of Swansea v Gayle, when the court considered whether the use of covert filming as evidence of