TD Bank Monitoring Tool Raises Privacy Questions
Toronto-Dominion Bank has told some employees in its financial-crimes and risk management division that it will use workplace monitoring software, raising questions over privacy, consent and the spread of employee-tracking tools.
News
- Why India Needs to Build Its Own Foundational AI Model
- India Lines Up $750 million Fresh Chip Incentives
- Delhivery Turns Logistics Data Into Software, Rolls Out Maps
- AI Now Handles More Than a Third of India’s Entry-Level Work
- AI Matches Doctors in Simulated Clinical Tests
- India’s AI Talent Crunch Is Sharpest in GenAI
Image Credit- Chetan Jha/ MIT Sloan Management Review India
Toronto-Dominion Bank has told some employees in its financial-crimes and risk management team that it will use workplace monitoring software, putting staff in one of the bank’s most sensitive compliance functions at the center of a wider debate over employee surveillance.
The software, WorkiQ by ActiveOps, will track the time employees spend on browsers, internal chat tools and meeting applications, Reuters reported, citing a recording of a team call and a document shared with employees.
TD said the tool is not powered by artificial intelligence and is part of workforce management practices used across the industry.
“In various parts of our business, we use automated solutions to improve insights and better allocate resources,” the bank told Reuters.
Employees raised questions about privacy, consent, data collection and whether the information could be used for performance management.
On an internal call reviewed by Reuters, a TD executive said WorkiQ would run in the background and had undergone a privacy review.
The executive said the tool would not listen to conversations during meetings and would not track what employees were doing inside spreadsheets, though it could show that they were active in applications such as Excel.
ActiveOps describes WorkiQ as a workforce intelligence tool that helps companies understand when, where and how employees are working, including which applications they use. The company says the software can help managers identify bottlenecks, balance workloads and improve performance and employee well-being.
The rollout comes as TD continues to strengthen its financial-crimes controls after US regulators imposed about $3 billion in penalties over anti-money-laundering failures.
Reuters reported last year that the settlement included penalties from the US Department of Justice, FinCEN, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve. TD later appointed a compliance monitor, with the bank saying anti-money-laundering remediation was its top priority.
Reuters did not say whether employees outside the covered teams or geographies would be included. TD Bank did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
The move adds to wider scrutiny of workplace monitoring. Meta has faced employee pushback over software designed to collect mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes for AI training, while JPMorgan has drawn attention for monitoring junior bankers’ working hours.
For employers, such tools promise better visibility into workloads, productivity and operational gaps, especially in hybrid work settings.
For employees, the concern is whether activity data collected for workflow planning can later be used to judge performance, discipline staff or normalize more intrusive forms of surveillance.
Toronto-Dominion Bank has a wholesale-banking presence in Mumbai, while ActiveOps, the maker of WorkiQ, lists an office in Bengaluru. There is no indication so far that India-based employees are covered by the monitoring rollout.
