Boss is aWare—Are you? Employee comprehension and legal awareness of workplace monitoring

Bunwaree, Teshan S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4008-5181, Stawarz, Katarzyna ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9021-0615, Collins, Philippa and Gould, Sandy J. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0476-4270 2025. Boss is aWare—Are you? Employee comprehension and legal awareness of workplace monitoring. Presented at: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'25), Yokohama, Japan, 26 April - 01 May 2025. Published in: Yamashita, N., Evers, V., Yatani, K., Ding, X., Lee, B., Chetty, M. and Toups-Dugas, P. eds. Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York, NY, United States: Association for Computing Machinery, p. 1205. 10.1145/3706598.3713651

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Abstract

Bossware, software that monitors worker activity, is a common feature of workplaces. What do workers know about these tools and how they relate to their rights at work? We explored this question through two studies. Study 1 surveyed 100 workers to assess their understanding of work monitoring terminology. Participants were confident in their knowledge of key terms but struggled to accurately define them. Study 2 explored awareness of legal protection in relation to work monitoring through 19 semi-structured online interviews. We found that awareness varied with industry and work role, but was generally low and lacked certainty. Participants were largely skeptical of the use of bossware, questioning its necessity. Limited knowledge of monitoring terminology and legal protection at work further weakens workers' ability to notice and challenge the use of monitoring tools in their workplaces. We finish by speculating on whether educating workers about bossware and workplace rights would help.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Computer Science & Informatics
Publisher:	Association for Computing Machinery
ISBN:	979-8-4007-1394-1
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 March 2025
Date of Acceptance:	16 January 2025
Last Modified:	30 Apr 2025 14:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176547

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