Suzie Cheikh, a woman based in Australia, had been an employee of insurance company Insurance Australia Group (IAG) for 18 years. She opted to work remotely. Well, the company decided to monitor her work-at-home progress via keystroke surveillance. Cheikh was fired on Feb. 20 from the company when the monitoring tool revealed she wasn’t working on her job computer for long stretches of time.

Before her termination, Cheikho received a formal warning in November 2022.

In a world where remote work has become the new norm, the lines between professional and personal life have blurred like never before.

The former IAG consultant filed a complaint with the Fair Work Commission (FWC), but the FWC rejected her unfair dismissal claim, citing a valid reason for her termination based on misconduct, The New York Post reported.

Cheikho, responsible for tasks including creating insurance documents, adhering to regulatory timelines, and monitoring work-from-home compliance, was fired for reasons including missed deadlines, absences, and failing to complete a task that wound up getting the company fined by industry regulators.

A detailed review of her cyber activity over 49 working days from October to December showed instances of not working her designated hours, starting late, finishing early, as well as days with zero work hours. In detail, she did not work her work hours for 44 days, started late on 47 days, finished early on 29 days, and performed zero hours of work on 4 days.

When she did log on, she had “very low keystroke activity” and recorded zero strokes over 117 hours in October, 143 hours in November, and 60 hours in December, Australian news outlet News.com reported.

The FWC ruling indicated that Cheikho’s keystroke data was key in assessing her performance, and was not a violation of her privacy.

Photo by Thirdman: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-white-crew-neck-t-shirt-using-silver-laptop-computer-5318976/