Seminar: Benefits of monitoring digital data for health purposes in employees

Seminar: Benefits of monitoring digital data for health purposes in employees
-

This is a past event

This Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) seminar explores the conditions of ethical and lawful monitoring of employee workplace practices for the purposes of identifying risk of poor physical and mental health.

This Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) seminar explores the conditions of ethical and lawful monitoring of employee workplace practices for the purposes of identifying risk of poor physical and mental health. It will address the boundaries of legitimate/illegitimate monitoring and consider how employee trust and confidence in the benefits of monitoring may be achieved whilst avoiding the disbenefits. It will explore how employees might be ethically and lawfully monitored for the purposes of safeguarding employee health through understanding the legal and ethical requirements.

 

Convenor: Prof Graeme Laurie, Dr Mark Taylor

 

This seminar session includes the following speakers:

 

  • Dr Mark J Taylor (University of Sheffield)
  • Professor David MR Townend (University of Maastricht)
  • Dr Mark Butler (University of Lancaster)
  • Dr Tom S Calvard (University of Edinburgh)
  • Professor G Laurie (University of Edinburgh)

 

10.00: Arrival and coffee

 

10.30:Introduction to seminar and framing the use of big data for wellbeing from ethical and legal perspective’ Mark Taylor (University of Sheffield)

 

11.00: How far can Law on its own create an environment of trust and confidence especially for people who feel vulnerable? David Townend (University of Maastricht).

 

Prof Townend is to consider the following questions:

 

1. What is the nature of the problem? What does a vulnerable employee need to feel confident enough to ask for help? (Especially where the difficulties might be employment related, either by an unreasonable employer, or through a weakness in the employee.)

 

2. Legal Protections outside employment Law?

 

2.1 Does data protection Law (especially the GDPR) give sufficient protection about personal data?

 

2.2 Can fiduciary duties help us?

 

3.1 what are the legitimate expectations of employees (with different sorts of difficulties)?

 

3.2 what might legitimate claims on the information in the personal data be for the employer?

 

3.3 what are the responsibilities of the shareholders?

 

4. What sort of safeguards might work?

 

 

 

11.30: Implied Trust and Confidence Mark Butler (University of Lancaster)

 

Dr Butler is to consider the implications of implied term of trust and confidence, health and safety issues (including work-related stress issues under Walker and Hatton) and matters relating to the Equality Act.

 

12.00: Discussion of first three presentations and implications for the ethical and legal use of big data to support wellbeing.

 

12.50: Lunch (Carstares Room)

 

13.40: The Quantified Self Tom Calvard (University of Edinburgh)

 

Dr Calvard will discuss the ethical issues around greater digital monitoring of employee health by reviewing theory and research on the concept of ‘the quantified self’. On the one hand, if employees are allowed to own, measure, understand and participate in gathering and analyzing digital information about themselves, quantifying the self should be empowering and beneficial to their health. On the other hand, there are likely to always be wider structural concerns about how this data is used and related back to power imbalances in the context of employment relationships, in terms of how the data is shared, interpreted, contextualized and acted upon beyond the individual. This presentation argues that one way forward in managing these tensions is to theorize the quantified self as representing a process of embodied sensemaking, emphasizing the importance of interpreting health data flexibly and reflexively in ways that are socially and politically acceptable to a range of stakeholders. In doing so, the presentation draws further on the work of various digital sociologists and historians of data and science to critically understand the emergence of a ‘statistical-digital employee self’ made up of highly personalized physical and mental health information.

 

14.10: ‘Principles of Good Data Governance’ – Graeme Laurie (University of Edinburgh). Professor Laurie will reflect on the transferability and applicability to routinely collected employee data of principles of good data governance developed for the health sector through extensive multi-disciplinary collaboration.

 

14.40: Discussion of the two papers given in the afternoon and implications for the ethical and legal use of big data to support wellbeing.

 

15.10: Coffee

 

15.25: Discussion and main themes/learning points – related to the key questions/future research

 

16.00 Finish

 

Read more Read less

Speaker
Various
Hosted by
University of Edinburgh and The Economic & Social Research Council
Venue
University of Edinburgh, Raeburn Room Old College South Bridge Edinburgh
Contact

Booking Site