Council accused of recording staff without their knowledge

Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council has allegedly been recording staff without their knowledge, according to a local trade union leader.

NIPSA’s Lorraine Hartin made the claim while speaking following a protest over the installation of cameras in council offices in areas which she says are 'only open to staff'.

NIPSA, GMB and Unite were present at the protest in Coleraine last Friday, June 12.

“One of our members came to us and said 'they've just put CCTV cameras up in the offices' – the open plan offices,” Ms Hartin said.

“That is not where you would usually have CCTV – usually you would have it where the public have access.

“There were quite a few people out on the picket line today. They're all angry, really angry that this is being done to them.”

Ms Hartin said regular procedure was not followed by the council when installing the cameras.

“Usually when a policy is put forward it would go through a process called Joint Negotiation and Consultation Committee so there would be the management side and the union side present,” she continued.

“There has been no council CCTV policy. Trade Unions have been asking for the policy for about five years. They have a draft policy. They brought it to us last May but it wasn't fit for purpose and we did not agree to it.

“Nowhere in this draft policy did it state CCTV would be put into any of the offices where the public do not have access.

“In their draft policy they have stated that best practice would be that they have to communicate with staff beforehand but they never did that.”

Ms Hartin says she told the council to remove the cameras and stated that the lack of consultation was not acceptable.

She says she got a response a week later saying ‘it was just for staff safety’.

However she says ‘staff have been working in that building for years and their safety hasn't been questioned’.

“There's no reason they couldn’t come and discuss less invasive ways to increase security with us.”

The unions were allegedly told 'repeatedly' that while the cameras were already up, they would not be active until there was proper engagement with them.

They were later told that when a member of council staff went to cover up the cameras, they discovered they had been recording the whole time, according to Ms Hartin.

“They came back and said they will take them down. They won't give us a date for taking them down. They won't tell us who has access to that data. There has to be a Data Controller. They won't tell us if people can access it on the phone.

“It's quite a large open plan office with cameras that can zoom in. It would have massive GDPR implications. There's government guidelines about CCTV and they're quite stringent.

“With the CCTV that is already up [in the areas where the public can access] there's a manager who can access that on his phone already.”

It is also unclear what offices will have the cameras at this point.

“They said they're only in Cloonavin, Coleraine. We know that's a lie. We know that there are some in Ballymoney and Limavady that have been put up this week. So we don't have any confidence whatsoever, that they're telling us the truth,” said Lorraine, who alleges the cameras were installed without being authorised by councillors.

A representative of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council said: “As part on an ongoing review and upgrade of facility security, additional CCTV devices have been installed at Council headquarters, Cloonavin.

“The additional devices are being installed to enhance Council security and to ensure staff feel safe in the workplace.

“This matter will not be progressed any further until after consideration of governance processes and staff consultation.”