In Nineteen-Eighty-Four, George Orwell had penned, “Big Brother is watching you”, which some how have become the truth of the 21st century surveillance governance. Civil servants will have their computers monitored in a bid to end a “work from home culture”. Civil servants have been told in an official notice that their “compliance with office working will be checked through their use of the Cabinet Office’s computers. This surveillance governance has been introduced to boost efficiency which has dipped to 42%.

The Cabinet Office is monitoring employees’ computer and Wi-Fi logins to ensure civil servants are complying with minister’s back to-office drive. A privacy notice for the departments’ Official IT platform have been updated which indicates that scrutiny of civil servant’s working locations is unlikely to let up.

What to officials have to Say?

The cabinet office said, “we have been consistently clear that we want to see office attendance across the civil service consistently back at pre-pandemic levels”. This came after Jacob Rees-Mogg made unflattering comments about officials not being in the office on Mondays and Fridays. Also he attacked a trade union that has defended its members over home working saying, “there’s a hard work ethos in civil service, unfortunately not represented by their trade union”.

surveillance capitalism

What can be the Impact?

Relations between the government and the civil service are at an all-time low. This can further create a breach between the two. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “this is worrying Big-brother-style development that we fear could be used to victimize our members who work from home rather than in the office”. This could even create a major problem in their personal space as well.

What can be done?

The work from home and also from office can both be balanced by giving permission to work from home as well as from office by reducing the number of days at home. Also ministers have threatened to slash 91,000 civil service jobs if they do not return to office. As inflation is soaring, this may impact the workers more. Private information should not be leaked at any cost this must be the foremost concern of this governance system.

As Orwell had returned, ” political language is designed to make its sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”. The governance system which they have acquired is highly unethical, intruding personal space violates right to freedom. This government can be called totalitarian in this approach, where surveillance is used to control populace. In the Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shashana Zuboff talks about how the totalitarian Big Brother state has become the “Big other” operating in the interest of surveillance capitalism. This has happened with civil servants, where they are scrutinizing for capitalist classes.