TCS installs laptop digital experience monitoring tool, prompting employee surveillance concerns

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has reportedly introduced a Digital User Experience Monitoring tool on company-issued laptops, sparking debate over workplace privacy and surveillance. The technology can reportedly track application usage and time spent on devices. While such tools can strengthen cybersecurity, concerns remain over data collection, employee monitoring, access controls and transparency surrounding their use.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has installed a Digital User Experience Monitoring tool on company-issued laptops used across its workforce, according to a report by Moneycontrol. The development has triggered discussions around the balance between cybersecurity requirements and employee privacy at India's largest IT services company, whose workforce is nearing 600,000 employees.What the tool tracksSources cited by Moneycontrol said the software allows TCS to view which applications employees access on their devices and how much time is spent on them. The deployment is reportedly being viewed internally both as a measure to strengthen data security and as a way to gain greater visibility into activity on company-owned devices. TCS has not responded to queries regarding the identity of the software vendor, the full range of the tool's capabilities, whether the data collected is tied to individual employees, or which teams within the organisation have access to it.Lack of clarity around scopeThe extent of monitoring enabled by the tool could not be independently verified, the report noted. It remains unclear whether the information gathered is linked to individual employees, aggregated for IT and security purposes, or made accessible to business managers. Details still undisclosed include the name of the software vendor, the full scope of monitoring capabilities, whether employee-level data is being collected, and whether monitoring extends beyond basic system performance metrics. The absence of formal communication about the rollout has reportedly led to speculation among employees, even though monitoring tools are commonly used across the IT and business process management sectors.Industry view on the trade-offsPareekh Jain, chief executive of research and advisory firm EIIRTrend, told Moneycontrol that such tools can serve legitimate operational purposes, including assessing whether applications are functioning correctly, identifying performance issues, and understanding user experience patterns that matter to companies managing digital infrastructure for clients. Jain also noted that the same technologies could be used for surveillance depending on how an organisation chooses to deploy them.Possible link to Zscaler partnership unclearThe deployment follows an expanded partnership between TCS and cybersecurity company Zscaler. Earlier this year, TCS announced its Workspace Experience Studio, built using Zscaler Digital Experience technology, which the company said combines zero-trust security, workplace observability, digital experience monitoring and AI-powered analytics to improve employee digital experiences. Moneycontrol reported that it could not independently establish whether the monitoring tool installed on employee laptops is connected to this Zscaler-powered offering. While TCS has publicly positioned Workspace Experience Studio as a solution for enterprise customers, the current development concerns monitoring capabilities on devices used by its own staff.Not an isolated case in the sectorEmployee monitoring software is not new to the technology services industry. Last year, Cognizant faced scrutiny over its use of ProHance, a workforce management platform capable of tracking login times, application usage, website activity and periods of inactivity on company laptops; Cognizant maintained at the time that the tool was not used to evaluate individual employee performance and was deployed only on selected client projects to improve operational efficiency. Meta has also faced criticism after introducing a tool capable of logging employee keystrokes and mouse activity to gather data for AI development, though it later added controls allowing staff to pause data collection for up to 30 minutes and request exemptions.