Last call on the monitoring consultation. It closes at 11:59pm on Wednesday
The Department for Business and Trade is consulting on workplace monitoring technologies: the tools used to monitor, manage or make decisions relating to workers.
It closes at 11:59pm on Wednesday 30 September 2026. It applies to England, Scotland and Wales.
It is open to anyone. The department says it is seeking views from all parts of society and encourages everyone with a view to respond. You do not need to be an employer or a union. If software watches you work, you are the subject of it.
The consultation considers options to improve four things: clarity, transparency, worker voice, and broader industrial relations around the use of these technologies.
There are three ways to respond. The department strongly encourages the online form, which is linked from the consultation page on gov.uk under the heading Ways to respond. You can also email wmtconsultation@businessandtrade.gov.uk, or write to the Employment Rights Directorate at the Old Admiralty Building, Admiralty Place, London SW1A 2DY.
The full consultation document runs to 68 pages, but you are not required to answer all of it. Answer the parts you have something to say about. Our Playbook of 22 September set out the four questions where an individual answer counts for most, and that guidance still holds.
The Quernal provides general information, not legal or financial advice.
What can a reader actually do about being monitored at work, and by when?
- Make Work Pay: workplace monitoring technologies, published 8 July 2026 by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the Department for Business and Trade and Kate Dearden MP. The page states: closes at 11:59pm on 30 September 2026; applies to England, Scotland and Wales; seeks views from all parts of society; considers options to improve clarity, transparency, worker voice and broader industrial relations; strongly encourages the online platform; gives the email wmtconsultation@businessandtrade.gov.uk and the Old Admiralty Building postal address; consultation document is 68 pages.
- Own archive: Issue 72, 22 September 2026, Playbook, which first pointed readers at this consultation.
- Matt Brazil Two institutions answered our questions on Monday. One of them told us where the hour goes
- James Vahid Deloitte asked 25,000 workers what they did with the time GenAI saved them. Eighty-four per cent gave it back to the same employer
- Dr. Leah Sandoval Britain's jobs survey undercounted employees by 365,000 a quarter for three years. The office that runs it has just published that itself