Let’s rip up RIPA

By Kit Leary

Pssst. Over here. Quietly! Keep your voice down. You don’t know who is listening.

Sorry for the secret squirrel nature of this post, but I work for a council you see, and the Metro carries an article today reporting that Councils are spying on their own workers.

To be quite honest, looking back on it, the signs have been there all along. I did wonder why my line manager started to wear skintight black cat suits and babbled on about “the Russian goose flying south for the CRB Renewals”. I just thought it was some new motivational tool for managers; increase productivity by confusing the hell out of the workers. Nothing surprises me about the public sector any more.

Still, this is pretty serious business. Town halls are rapidly becoming mini versions of East Germany, where we have to watch what we say, and where we say it. If a council worker sends a personal email from their work account – even if the Council’s Internet Use Policy allows this – is the Council’s property.

But that’s not the big problem here. It would be a slow-paced council not to have a robust Internet Use Policy which doesn’t cover what employees can and can’t do with their employers’ IT resources. What bothers me – actually, what frightens me is that councils are apparently using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to look into employee’s IT use.

The other main article that I can find on this – and please don’t throw rotten fruit at me for mentioning this, it made me feel unclean as well – is from the Daily Mail. Their article cites two examples:

It showed that Maidstone Council spied on an employee it suspected was having an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with a local housing landlord.

In Exeter an employee suspected of using office computers for personal use was spied on using remote monitoring software.

Jeez Louise, doesn’t that scare you? Maybe my line manager is moonlighting. I didn’t enter the public sector to be constantly spied on – unless I applied to join North Korea County Council by mistake, of course. The longer I’m active as a union rep, the more I think that employers, by policy or involuntary action, simply mistrust their employees. Maybe I’m just jaded after being at the coalface of Industrial Relations, but how else can you explain it?

RIPA – a very Orwellian name for a bit of law which actually increases the use of snooping by public bodies (rather than restricting it, which is what the word “regulation” implies) – is, even officially, supposed to be used to fight trrrrrism (Government’s words, not mine). Never was I, or anyone else I know, told that it was to be used to investigate council workers. Councils, like any other employer, should have robust and fair policies for investigating disciplinary matters.

Councils have proved themselves incapable of using RIPA powers with any regard for privacy, fair play, and due process. Hey, Gordon, want to win back some desperately needed credibility? Abolish RIPA. Maybe then I can start to have a proper conversation with my line manager again. And not have to constantly look over my shoulder and do the job I’m paid to do.