I'm not the employer, I am an employee with the companies interest in mind. A new CCTV system has been set up. There was already an existing CCTV setup but this is in a different area, on a different circuit and for a different purpose. The new CCTV purpose has been posted to a few staff (about 2% of the people who will be filmed) in an email but I cant see an ambigious email being being an official document. I'm trying to get a policy written up or find an existing one but no one seems to know if this is a legal requirement and I have spent hours looking at the Data Protection Act looking for something to show the employer so they get their act together. All I have been able to find is that people being filmed have a right to know the purpose, but nothing about how that purpose is to be relayed. Within weeks of the CCTV switch on there was an incident that resulted in a threating email being sent out informing a few people, stating that if no one owned up then the CCTV would be used to find out, as you can guess this was not the purpose the CCTV was setup for (According to the email). Now if legal proceding ever came up, which I'm 99.9% sure would never happend, you can guess how it would end up.
I am infavor of the system but I'd like it to be for an additional purpose of watching customers (namely other departments) attitudes towards the staff, which I would think would come under staff safety.