TCS Denies Employee Surveillance Reports Over Laptop Monitoring Tool

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has rejected reports that it is using monitoring software to track individual employee activity on company-issued laptops, calling the reports “baseless and inaccurate”.

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The clarification comes after a report claimed that the IT services company had deployed a Digital User Experience Monitoring tool across laptops used by nearly 600,000 employees.

What the Report Claimed

According to the earlier report by Moneycontrol, the monitoring tool installed on TCS-issued laptops could provide information on applications accessed by employees and the amount of time spent on them.

The deployment reportedly raised questions about whether the technology was being used mainly for data security and IT performance or could also provide greater visibility into employee activity.

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Digital Experience Monitoring tools are generally used by companies to understand the performance of applications, devices and networks. They can help IT teams identify technical problems, application failures and other issues affecting the digital experience.

TCS Rejects Employee Tracking Claims

TCS has denied that the technology is being used to monitor individual employees.

In a statement shared with India Today Tech, the company said:

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The reports regarding surveillance of employees are baseless and inaccurate. TCS does not track individual employee activity on laptops and respects their privacy.”

The company added that its tools are used to monitor “macro-level network performance” to support security, availability and a better digital experience for employees.

Questions Around the Monitoring Tool

Despite TCS’s clarification, several details about the reported deployment remain unclear.

Public reports have not established the name of the software, its vendor, the exact information it can collect, who can access the information, or whether any data can be linked to individual employees.

This distinction is important. A monitoring tool may collect technical information about application and network performance without necessarily being used to assess an individual employee’s productivity.

At the same time, the ability to see application usage and time spent can raise employee privacy concerns depending on how the data is collected, stored and accessed.

Security vs Employee Privacy

The issue highlights a wider challenge for large technology companies. Organisations need strong systems to protect client data, prevent security incidents and maintain the performance of their IT infrastructure.

However, employees also want clarity about what information is collected from company devices and how that information is used.

For companies deploying such technology, clear communication about the purpose of monitoring, the type of data collected and access controls can help avoid confusion among employees.

What Is Confirmed?

At present, the confirmed position is that TCS denies tracking individual employee activity and says its digital tools are used for network performance, security, availability and employee experience.

The claims about individual application usage and time spent originate from the earlier media report and have not been independently verified.

The TCS clarification therefore shifts the focus from whether monitoring technology exists to how it is configured and whether employee-level information is actually collected or used.