Exclusive: Teleperformance, which employs 380,000 people, plans to use specialist webcams to watch staff

• ‘Missing from desk’: AI webcam raises remote surveillance concerns

Thousands of staff at one of the world’s biggest call centre companies face being monitored by webcams to check whether they are eating, looking at their phones or leaving their desks while working from home, the Guardian has learned.

In a sign of potential battles ahead over the surveillance of remote staff after the pandemic, Teleperformance – which employs about 380,000 people in 34 countries and counts dozens of major UK companies and government departments among its clients – has told some staff that specialist webcams will be fitted to check for home-working “infractions”.