Business Management Report: Barclays Bank's Privacy Concerns Analysis

This report examines the privacy concerns at Barclays Bank, focusing on the use of employee monitoring software. The bank's implementation of 'Big Brother' tactics, tracking employee time and activities, is analyzed, highlighting the ethical implications and potential impact on employee productivity and morale. The report references academic sources to discuss the importance of privacy, its role in protecting individuals from unwarranted interference, and the need for banks like Barclays to respect employee rights. It emphasizes the importance of balancing business needs with the protection of individual privacy, advocating for a more balanced approach to employee monitoring. The analysis includes a discussion of the potential for reduced employee interest and difficulties in retaining staff due to excessive surveillance.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Business Management
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Author’s Note:

1MANAGEMENT
Why is this an issue? Why is privacy so important?
Barclay’s Bank represents a British investment bank whose core business lay in corporate
banking, personal banking, investment and wealth management. The bank made use of spying
tactics known as ‘Big Brother’ which is basically a tracking software that kept track on how
much time the employee spent on their desks (Augar, 2018). . This has led to the creation of an
issue because initially Barclays declared that it would use the new system for collecting
information on the employees on an anonymous basis but in reality it turned on supplementary
functions that allowed managers in observing the activity patterns of individual employee. In
fact, it was basically a tracking software that kept track on how much time the employee spent on
their desks (Dalziel, 2014). The software also sent warnings in case the employee took an
extended break. The employee found that the software interfered too much with their
fundamental right. Continuous scrutiny on employees might also resulted in loss of interest in
work as well as productivity (Cervellati, Piras & Scialanga, 2013). Besides, the Barclay’s might
also find it difficult in retaining employees by continuously intruding into their privacy. Banks
like Barclays must understand that employees must be untitled to some fundamental right even
when they are at work.
Privacy is important since it enables people in not only creating boundaries but also
protect them against unwarranted interference thereby allowing them to negotiate with who they
are and the ways they would like to adopt for interacting with a world around them (Rachels,
2017).Privacy also helps in protecting individuals against the unjustified and the arbitrary use of
the power by companies, states and others.

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References:
Augar, P. (2018). The bank that lived a little: Barclays in the age of the very free market.
Penguin UK.
Cervellati, E. M., Piras, L., & Scialanga, M. (2013). Corporate Culture and Frauds: A Behavioral
Finance Analysis of the Barclays-LIBOR Case. Corporate Ownership & Control, 447.
Dalziel, N. (2014). Customer Complaints and Service Recovery on Social Media: An
Investigation into Barclays Bank Facebook Page. ECSM 2014 University of Brighton
Brighton, UK, 111-119.
Rachels, J. (2017). Why privacy is important. In Privacy (pp. 11-21). Routledge.