Dr. Michelle O'Sullivan:

Mr. O'Connell was correct that what we need is more information on what is happening. As I have mentioned, this is one of the first studies on surveillance in Ireland. The level of surveillance very much depends on the organisation and the type of job you are doing. Even within the financial services sector, some companies have invested enormous amounts in technology. The difference now is that the technology provides constant and granular data compared with previously. The other difference is that, whereas in the past when you talked about the industrial revolution and so on, a lot of automation up to the present was about the processes of work. It is now about the management of workers and managerial decision making. In some other organisations, such as some banks involved in retail banking, there is an enormous amount of data collection particularly focused on sales targets. Every aspect of what employees do is collected into score cards. In some organisations their conversations are recorded, both within retail banks and obviously within call centres. Other organisations have invested far less in technology and people have a lot more autonomy. It depends on the occupation someone is in. Internationally there is a growing, but not a huge amount of data, on what kinds of data are collected. A European parliament resolution on mental health in the digital world of work states that 40% of HR departments in international companies are using artificial intelligence. That can be anything from the hiring phase, to the monitoring, to the termination phase. It varies. In some organisations, for example in warehousing, it is well know that people have palm pilots attached to them tracking their productivity and what they do. It varies a lot across organisations.