The ICO Code of Practice

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has produced an Employment Practices Code to aid employers in complying with the DPA and to encourage good practice. Part 3 of the Code covers monitoring at work.


This is an important reference point for unions in raising any concerns about monitoring practices and negotiating workplace policies. The ICO Code, and the ways it can be drawn on to support members and to hold the employer to account, are examined in detail in Chapter 9.


It is important to note that the ICO Code does not have legal force. Instead, it recommends practice for employers in following the law and acting in a fair and reasonable way. The introduction warns that while employers “may have alternative ways of meeting these requirements…if they do nothing they risk breaking the law.”


The ICO recommendations are a set of benchmarks unions can use to hold employers to account. On a number of occasions reference by unions to the ICO Code or complaints to the ICO have led to employers changing their practice. Some of these cases are referred to in Chapters 2-6.