Hidden camera found in Sydney Trains cab

The Loco Division recently came across a ‘Go Pro’ style video camera being used in the crew compartment of a Sydney Trains’ train, capturing footage for an unknown purpose.

The union, of course, immediately put this into dispute.

The dispute was escalated immediately to step 2 of the Dispute Settlement Procedure of the EA 2014, due to concerns that conditions of employment were being interfered with, and potentially compromised.

The dispute got Sydney Trains to the table immediately. At the meeting the union found out that Sydney Trains are running a project called Operational Capacity Program and an element of this is a Line Speed Review which the captured footage is being used for.

The captured footage is covered by the usual Sydney Trains Information and data security policies and we were advised that no audio was captured.

It has been agreed that suitably qualified staff will ask the driver for permission which must be obtained before proceeding with footage collection, and they will brief the driver as to what is happening. They will have the suitable cab passes and will stay with the camera while it is in use.

Once the project is finished and the data has been collected and analysed, the results and recommendations will be distributed to key stakeholders with the Loco Division making it clear we expected to be part of this.

If you’d like more information on the situation, please don’t hesitate to contact the Loco Division office. Thanks to those members who brought the issue to our attention.