Usually, yes. In NSW and the ACT, an employer can monitor your work computer, email and internet use if it gives you written notice and follows a policy you have been told about. Victoria has no law like that. The federal Privacy Act makes no specific reference to workplace surveillance.
Can your employer read your work email and Teams chats?
Expect that it can. The Fair Work Ombudsman tells employers to make clear to staff that:
- electronic communications and social media aren't private
- the business can delete data employees have put into its systems at any time
- the business monitors compliance with its privacy, social media and acceptable use policies
- what is recorded and kept, such as the content and patterns of emails and browsing or location information, and who can access it.
It says businesses are increasingly using apps, monitoring software and tracking devices to supervise employees, including their work output, how they use business property when working from home, and their attendance. Whether and how your employer can do that depends on where you work.
What does NSW law say about workplace surveillance?
The Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 covers three kinds of surveillance at work: camera, computer and tracking. Computer surveillance means software or equipment that monitors or records what goes into or out of a computer, or how it is used, including sending and receiving emails and visiting websites.
Before surveillance starts, your employer must give you written notice:
- at least 14 days before it starts, unless you agree to less
- before your first day, if it is already running when you start or begins within 14 days of your start
- saying what kind of surveillance it is, how it will be done, when it starts, whether it is continuous or intermittent, and whether it is for a set period or ongoing.
Notice by email counts. For computer surveillance, your employer must also follow a computer surveillance policy, and tell you about it in advance in a way that means you can reasonably be assumed to know and understand it.
The Act also says:
- Cameras must be clearly visible, with signs at each entrance to the area.
- Employers must not carry out surveillance in a change room, toilet or shower at work.
- When you are not at work, your employer must not use a work surveillance device to carry out surveillance of you. The exception is computer surveillance of your use of equipment or resources your employer provided, so a work laptop can still be monitored at home.
- Your employer can block emails or websites only under a policy you have been told about, and must tell you when it stops an email being delivered, unless the email is spam, could damage its systems, or would be seen as menacing, harassing or offensive.
- Surveillance records can be used or disclosed only for a legitimate purpose related to employment or the business, for police, for legal proceedings, or to avert an imminent threat of serious violence or substantial damage to property.
Surveillance that doesn't follow these notice rules is covert surveillance, which is an offence unless a covert surveillance authority has been issued under the Act. The Act doesn't apply to listening devices, which the NSW Surveillance Devices Act 2007 deals with.
What about the ACT?
The Workplace Privacy Act 2011 also requires written notice at least 14 days before surveillance starts, unless you agree to less. The notice must say what device will be used, how, who will be watched, when it starts, whether it is continuous or intermittent, whether it has an end date, what the records may be used for, and that you can consult your employer about it. Your employer must consult you in good faith during that notice period.
For computer monitoring, your employer needs a policy that says how its computer resources may and must not be used, what is logged and who can see the logs, and how it checks compliance. Computer resources include internet access and messaging apps.
Surveillance is banned in toilets, change rooms, showers, parent and nursing rooms, prayer rooms, sick bays and first aid rooms. Outside the workplace, your employer must not carry out surveillance of you, apart from monitoring your use of equipment or resources it provided and a few other exceptions.
What does Victoria's law say?
A Victorian parliamentary committee found in May 2025 that "Victoria does not have dedicated workplace surveillance laws". The Surveillance Devices Act 1999 bans employers from knowingly using a camera or listening device to watch, listen to or record workers in a workplace toilet, washroom, change room or lactation room.
The committee recommended a new workplace surveillance law, including 14 days' written notice to workers that sets out the methods, scope, timing and purpose of the surveillance and how the data will be used and stored. The Victorian Government responded on 18 November 2025, supporting 15 recommendations in principle with 3 to be reviewed further. Its page gives no timeline for new laws.
Does the federal Privacy Act protect you?
Only partly. The Privacy Act makes no specific reference to surveillance in the workplace. A private sector employer's handling of your employee records is exempt from the Privacy Act when it is directly related to your current or former employment.
The exemption doesn't apply to Australian Government employees, whose employee records the Privacy Act covers. It also doesn't cover contractors handling another organisation's employee records, or uses unrelated to your employment.
Are recorded meetings and AI notes monitoring too?
A recording, transcript or AI summary of a work meeting is stored on your employer's systems like any other work file. The Fair Work Ombudsman tells employers to explain what they record and keep, and who can access it.
Habits worth keeping:
- Check whether a meeting is being recorded or transcribed before you speak.
- Treat anything said on a recorded call, including the minutes before it starts and after the host leaves, as something that will be kept and read.
- Have private conversations off the call.
What can you do if you think monitoring has crossed a line?
- Ask for your employer's surveillance, IT or acceptable use policy, and the notice you were given. In NSW and the ACT, your employer needs both before it monitors your computer use.
- Keep personal messages, banking and health matters off work devices and work accounts.
- Raise it with HR, your union or a lawyer. The Fair Work Ombudsman points people to their state or territory privacy body for surveillance and monitoring laws.
If a work phone means messages reach you after hours, our guide to the right to disconnect covers when you can ignore them.
What did TAC readers tell us?
We asked our community whether anyone they knew had been pulled up over something said in a Teams or Slack chat, and for their worst slips in recorded meetings.
A common answer from people who have run the monitoring was that chats are kept, and searched once there is a complaint or an investigation.
...Ex-HR here. Teams chats are monitored and investigated. Warnings issued. Clauses in most employment contracts giving employer permission to monitor all company systems and equipment.
...But in a few months, maybe a few years time if a complaint etc is made, we will go back and get all the logs. People can and do get dismissed for misconduct long after the comment has been made. ...
Not in my experience unless you did something beforehand that would warrant us digging up your Teams/email history and even then we can't go on a fishing expedition
The herald sun front page test - would you be ok if it was on the front page of the Herald - if not - don't put it in writing.
Facilitator of meeting dropped off call, execs stayed on and one openly trashed talked the facilitator and questioned why they had to work with someone so useless. Copilot summary post meeting highlighted the comments in the transcript. Exec had to apologise but no formal action
I was chatting to a stakeholder before the rest of the meeting attendees arrived and told them I was pregnant and it was added to the notes sent out afterwards & I hadn't intended on announcing it to everyone yet...
This is general information, not legal advice. Your contract, enterprise agreement and workplace policies may also set rules on monitoring.
Sources
- NSW Legislation, Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 (definitions, 14 days' written notice and its contents, email notice, computer surveillance policy, cameras and signs, change rooms and toilets, surveillance outside work, blocking emails and websites, use of records, covert surveillance, listening devices excluded, version in force from 28 March 2026, read 8 October 2026)
- ACT Legislation, Workplace Privacy Act 2011 (notice and its contents, consultation in good faith, data surveillance policy, prohibited areas, surveillance outside the workplace, republication effective 23 June 2021, read 8 October 2026)
- Victorian Legislation, Surveillance Devices Act 1999 (section 9B, toilets, washrooms, change rooms and lactation rooms, version 048, read 8 October 2026)
- Parliament of Victoria, Legislative Assembly Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Inquiry into workplace surveillance, May 2025 (no dedicated Victorian workplace surveillance laws, the Privacy Act makes no specific reference to workplace surveillance, recommendations 1 and 2, read 8 October 2026)
- Victorian Government, Workplace surveillance (government response, 15 recommendations supported in principle, 3 for further review, updated 18 November 2025, read 8 October 2026)
- Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Employee records exemption (private sector only, contractors, acts unrelated to employment, read 8 October 2026)
- Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Employment (Australian Government employee records are covered, read 8 October 2026)
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Workplace privacy best practice guide (what employers should tell staff about electronic communications and monitoring, monitoring technology, state and territory privacy bodies, read 8 October 2026)
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