CCTV at Work

If it could be guaranteed that access was for purely post incident investigation I’d be happier, and more understanding.

It’s the ability to be remotely accessed and monitored at any time that bugs me.

Imagine if we were having a rant about person X and  they remotely checked what was happening on our bridge. I’m sure it wouldn’t go down well…

If you’re working 12+ hours I hope “Employees and workers must get at least 11 hours’ uninterrupted rest between finishing work and starting work the next day.”

As above there needs to be stringent rules on who can access the footage and for what reasons. Preferably with consequences for misuse set out. Also the recording access need to be secured.  This should stop someone having a look because apparently you were badmouthing them or to check your break was actually 25minutes.

Ask your employer a couple of questions.

1. Who can access the cameras?

2. Do the cameras record audio?

The answers to these questions should either alleviate your concerns – or at least give you avenues to approach your employer with to ensure they implement the monitoring in a fair and appropriate manner

If you’re working 12+ hours I hope “Employees and workers must get at least 11 hours’ uninterrupted rest between finishing work and starting work the next day.”

EWTD does not apply to seafarers. Regardless of the ships Flag or location.

Personally I think the OP is overthinking this.

He’s a DPO, if they started sacking him and his mates because they slagged someone of in the office, then they would soon run out of crew. There is not a massive surplus of qualified personnel waiting to take his place.

You really think they’ve got time to spy on you full time? This is if something happens again (!) , you know what’s happened,  why, and how to fix it.

As  an aside there was a comment about ‘no blame culture’ and how stupid it was. The reason we do this for mistakes is that it shops people lying and covering up.  Everyone on rigs can make a mistake casting million- and it happens, quite often.   Very often they are honest mistakes,  stuff isn’t clear, bad instructions, bad data etc…  it creates a culture where it gets fixed instead of just blaming someone.

Very good friend of mine is a crane operator on exploration ships and he says that on his ship/s there’s CCTV all over the place already.

Seeing as there’s voice and instrument recording on all bridges already it’s kinda the natural progression shirley?

I am astonished at the folk who accept this unquestioningly and think it normal and routine.  I am sure there are privacy and GDPR implications.

@tjagain This is normal for nuclear station control rooms, how do you feel about that?

Now consider how many lives have been lost from shipping vs nuclear. How do you feel now?

@seadog101 whilst I get your argument about other areas what value would there realistically be? Everything is controlled from the bridge when manouvering or under power, you might get someone pressing a button in the ECR but we mostly existed out in the machinery space. If it’s UMS then even less chance of seeing something.

Won’t be UMS if in DP.

IME all crew complain about the “office”.

Also, when younger, “Fleet Personnel” could seem to be bitter towards crew, it seemed to stem from the fact that we got to go to interesting places and earned a lot more money than they did.

However, everyone in the “office” knows they are constantly slagged off onboard, I don’t think they really care. It’s the default mode for crew to drip. Even more so in a repetitive offshore environment.

I know a couple of DPA’s, all ex-sea going and they just think that crew members, particularly senior ones, are just a bit crazy and don’t take them too seriously. I don’t think they could be bothered to listen into conversations onboard to see what the crew thoinks about them, they already know.

As long as the ship is performing for the client, why would they care?

As was mentioned waaaay back up in the thread, just ask to see the Data Protection Impact Assessment. Of course with CCTV there will be UKGDPR & Privacy implications, like all these things there are shades of grey. The situation does sound like one in which CCTV might be appropriate, *if* done correctly.

The mention in another post about someone being able to request 10 years of their footage, no wonder the ICO came out in the data subjects favour! ?

Knowing the way that the (potential) installation of these cameras is being rushed at, I fully expect that the rules regarding the data they are going to capture, impact assessments, who can access / when / why etc etc etc… will not have been thought about in anyway whatsoever.

The watchkeeping behaviour we work to is, on paper, very strict.  If we stick to those rules rigidly, then other stuff we take care of on the ridge will impacted.

There’s numerous scenarios I could describe, but I’m sure you understand.

I’m keen to know who you work for seadog101, I work offshore for a large ship owning / management / subsea company that has PSV, AHTS, PLSV ROVSV and CSV’s.

Just asked the master if it had been on the cards for us and he says it has been doing the rounds.

it seems a bit wrong in that it’s just the bridge getting this
Isn’t the bridge where the most critical decisions and actions are taken?

Exactly this. Most parts of a ship involves purely mechanical processes, engine room, etc, whereas the bridge is about critical decisions, and as a result I’m astonished that a British registered vessel doesn’t already have full CCTV coverage.

A place I used to work had CCTV in the machine room, the warehouse, but more importantly in the post room and post sorting room: those rooms required that all coats and jackets were hung in an outer room along with all bags and mobile devices, storage devices etc. When working upstairs, I was one of relatively few people whose security pass card worked on every door except the server room, so I was under observation from cameras everywhere, and with good reason – the company was involved with charity raffles and lotteries, so cash, cheques, credit card numbers, etc, were accessible to anyone working in those areas so security was of utmost importance; a temporary staff member was spotted acting oddly, so the camera footage was interrogated, she was taken to an office and her pockets checked and she had £50-odd that she’d pilfered from charity envelopes returned with cash in.
The cameras were there for everyone’s safety, and I would be absolutely in favour of having cameras installed in a mission critical area of work, as much for my own personal safety and security. Especially somewhere like a large ship, where there are many examples of things going horribly wrong, and I’d want to be absolutely certain that everything I’d done was absolutely above board and open to the closest scrutiny in the event of a major accident.

I wouldn’t want there to be the slightest doubt that my actions on board were scrupulously correct, and no blame could be attached whatsoever.