Toronto-Dominion Bank has notified a group of workers in its financial crimes and risk management division that it plans to deploy tracking software to observe their on-the-job activity, according to a recording of an internal team call reviewed by Reuters along with a document the bank distributed to staff.
The software in question will record how much time employees spend using internet browsers and internal chat and meeting platforms, the recording revealed.
TD Bank defended the move in a statement to Reuters, calling it “standard practice across the industry.” The bank added: “In various parts of our business, we use automated solutions to improve insights and better allocate resources. This is not AI and not specific to any business or matter, the tool allows managers to more accurately manage workflows, team capacity and performance. Where deployed, colleagues are informed about where they are used and for what purpose.”
The bank also stated that safeguards are in place to protect employee privacy.
The software is supplied by a company called ActiveOps, which markets the product — named WorkiQ — as a tool for “employee and wellbeing intelligence” on its website. ActiveOps did not respond to a request for comment.
During the internal call, Deanna Pacitti, TD’s associate vice president of high-risk investigations, explained the purpose of the tool to her team. “The idea is it’s going to show pain points, where do we spend too much time … We know we have a lot of pain points across our systems,” she said.
Pacitti also addressed employee concerns about privacy, noting that “it is running in the background and it did go through privacy review.” She clarified that while the tool would not listen in on meetings, it would register whether an employee was active — meaning present in a meeting. She also explained that while the software would detect that an employee was working in a spreadsheet application like Excel, it would not capture what they were actually doing within that program.
TD has been growing its financial crimes and compliance operations in recent years following a record-setting penalty for money laundering violations in the United States, as well as the largest such fine ever paid by a major bank in Canada.
Like many companies since the pandemic, TD has operated on a hybrid work model, with employees splitting time between home and the office.
In a Frequently Asked Questions document shared with employees — and later obtained by Reuters — TD explained that WorkiQ would help managers recover visibility into employee work habits that was lost during the shift to remote work. The document addressed questions including “Can I use the Internet during my lunch hour?” and “How much time is a colleague expected to have accounted for during the day?” TD indicated in the document that some unaccounted-for time is acceptable and that the company is still working out those specific expectations.
Reuters was unable to confirm exactly how many employees would be subject to the monitoring or whether those affected are based only in Canada. An anonymous source familiar with the situation said between 90 and 100 employees were present on the call, though Reuters could not independently verify that figure.
On the call, employees raised a range of concerns — including what data would be collected, whether the tool could factor into performance reviews, and whether workers would be asked to give their consent. Some staff also questioned how the collected data would ultimately be used.
One worker suggested that the resources being used to monitor employee time would be better spent reducing the volume of manual tasks. Pacitti acknowledged the frustration, responding: “I totally agree with you. We have way too much manual stuff. We’re spending way too much time on that manual effort. I can only hope that this will further prove that point.”
TD’s move comes amid a broader trend of companies increasing digital oversight of their workers. The Financial Times reported in March that JPMorgan, the largest bank in the United States, began tracking the hours of its junior investment bankers, framing the monitoring as a measure for employee well-being.
Separately, Meta has been scaling back parts of a plan to collect employee mouse movements, keystrokes, and other computer activity for use as artificial intelligence training data, following significant internal pushback from staff, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters this month.
