Homeworker monitoring – is it justified or ‘sinister’?

Two Avon & Somerset police officers have been sacked for gross misconduct in the last two months for faking working from home after being caught by ‘keystroke tracking’.

- Adam Postans Local democracy reporter [e-mail]

But what exactly is it, how does it work, and is it even legal or ethical?

Here we explain the process following the two police misconduct hearings that resulted in the dismissal of former Yeovil PC Liam Reakes on Monday, June 9, who weighed down the ‘z’ key on his laptop keyboard for over 100 hours in total from June to September last year.

A subsequent investigation found that he had been doing this since September 2023.

The panel's ruling, that the officer would have been dismissed had he not already resigned, followed a similar case in April when Bridgwater-based Detective Constable Philippa Baskwill was also found to have committed gross misconduct and was fired without notice.

The force's professional standards department discovered she weighed down keyboard characters on her work laptop at home with her mobile phone for more than 46 hours over 15 shifts, with monitoring software showing her number of keystrokes rocketed from two million in 2022 to 21 million the following year.