Under plans to monitor physical access for employees, HSBC has increased camera surveillance and the use of facial recognition around its premises in London. It has also “badged” software on staff’s personal devices for digital access to the organisation’s systems. Their strategy and oversight on global security has rapidly stepped up, accessing the privileges of staff accessing their digital and physical premises, despite arguments of workplace surveillance.
Reuters has obtained internal documents detailing their forward global strategy, created by their security department.
The plans pertain to HSBC’s new global headquarters in Panorama St. Paul’s which covers 55,000 square meters, and houses 8,000 employees. The skyscraper will be half the size of Canada Wharf, but fitted with 1,754 cameras for surveillance purposes that the company defends.
Across the UK and US, physical access to facilities will be subject to biometric verification. Employees will have to sign in using their badged mobile mobile phones, albeit troubling some staff with privacy concerns.
The budget to enforce surveillance at the London site has grown to roughly $15million, as figures showed at the end of 2024 that most UK staff were not complying with new entry procedures.
The amount of biometric readers will double from 350 to 779 devices migrating to a new office facility.
HSBC addressed that the “safety and security of our people is at the forefront of everything HSBC does.”
“We regularly risk assess every building and dependant on the identified risk and vulnerabilities,” they continued. “We continue to invest in the latest cutting-edge technology to safeguard our colleagues, customers, and visitors in line with industry standards.”
The plans to use personal devices for corporate access, which will be overseen by Diane Marchena, HSBC’s Global Head of Protective Security, will disgruntle staff and lead to “eroded workplace trust”, some privacy advocates have said.
HSBC has also partnered with Octopus to deploy AI-driven tools for workplace surveillance in the UK and Hong Kong, and India and Mexico later this year.
A few security incidents including theft at Canary Wharf have put the company on high alert, as cited in documents. The procedures will create an entry and exit system for individual trading floors.
