TD Bank Reportedly to Track Employee Computer Activity

Canada’s second-largest bank, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, will reportedly start tracking its employees' activities. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, the bank has informed some employees that it will begin using software to monitor how they spend time on work apps. This reported move has raised questions about privacy and workplace surveillance and drawn comparisons to a similar employee backlash recently seen at Facebook parent Meta.

A few weeks ago, Meta faced internal opposition to its workplace monitoring initiative, the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), introduced earlier this year. This is a programme that the company designed to collect employee mouse movements, keystrokes and other computer interactions to help train AI models. The move triggered significant resistance from employees, with more than 1,500 workers signing a petition opposing the programme. Internal protests at the social media giant reportedly included flyers placed around company offices that read "Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?" Following the backlash, Meta later revised the programme. According to an internal memo reported by Reuters, employees were given the option to pause data collection for up to 30 minutes at a time and request exemptions from participation.

How Canada’s second-largest bank will track its employees

The Reuters report claims that TD Bank told employees in its financial crimes and risk management division that it plans to deploy WorkiQ. This is software developed by ActiveOps that will be used to track activity across browsers, internal chat tools and meeting apps. The initiative aims to help managers better understand workflows and identify operational bottlenecks. TD said that the deployment is "standard practice across the industry." In a statement to Reuters, the bank noted, "In various parts of our business, we use automated solutions to improve insights and better allocate resources. This is not AI and not specific to any business or matter, the tool allows managers to more accurately manage workflows, team capacity and performance. Where deployed, colleagues are informed about where they are used and for what purpose." The bank added that safeguards are in place to protect employee privacy.

Why TD Bank employees are raising privacy and consent concerns with the move

During a team call reviewed by Reuters, employees questioned how the software would be used, whether consent would be required and if the collected information could be tied to performance evaluations. The software will reportedly run in the background and measure activity across selected workplace apps. According to Deanna Pacitti, TD's associate vice president of high-risk investigations, the system is intended to identify inefficiencies rather than monitor the content of employees' work."The idea is it's going to show pain points, where do we spend too much time ... We know we have a lot of pain points across our systems," Pacitti told employees during the call."It is running in the background and it did go through privacy review," Pacitti said of WorkiQ in response to employee questions about privacy concerns. She explained that the software would not listen to conversations during meetings and would not record what employees are doing within applications such as Excel, although it could register activity within those programmes. An internal FAQ document shared with employees reportedly stated that WorkiQ would help managers regain visibility lost during the shift to hybrid and remote work. The document also addressed questions about internet usage during lunch breaks and expectations around employee activity throughout the workday.