The report, released on Tuesday, found monitoring tools are now common across factories, offices, delivery work and retail, often without employees being aware of it. Techniques include CCTV, card swipe logs, keystroke monitoring and tracking workplace messaging, with Microsoft Teams highlighted as a common surveillance platform. The company this year rolled out a tool that automatically marks a worker as in the office when they connect to workplace wifi.

The examples are striking. Researchers were told that young staff at one unnamed large fast-food chain avoided the change rooms after learning cameras had been installed there to catch phone use. In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry on AI, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association said a supermarket cashier received a final written warning after an AI system flagged her errors, an error rate of 0.18%, or roughly one mistake per 533 items scanned.

The institute's proposals include an overhaul of the Fair Work Act to test whether monitoring is fair and reasonable, powers for a minister to ban surveillance products posing an unacceptable risk to workers, better consent processes, and a dedicated complaints scheme at the Fair Work Commission. Co-director Professor Edward Santow said transparency over workplace surveillance was "necessary but far from sufficient". The report also points to smartglasses, which it warns could be used to covertly surveil workers.