British airways the world’s largest airline paid approximately £1 million to make details of a spying operation disappear. The spying operation involved unauthorized access to staff email, and phone records during a labor dispute with Britain’s largest union. The Union, received the cash after suing British airways over specialist investigators working out of their Heathrow airport hub. Unite claimed 10 employees of British airways, who also doubled up as union officials had their records gone through.
The use of the former Scotland Yard officers as private company investigators gives a view of the scale in which big companies use espionage tactics to reign in on their own employees. It is reported that the decision to hire the investigators was taken at the highest levels of management in the £12 billion company.
This payment by British airways, paid to make claims disappear, echoes that paid by Rupert Murdoch of the News group newspapers to settle voicemail interceptions out of court. Unite after knowing their staff was targeted, hired a lawyer to institute a suit against British airways.
British airways on its part, feigns innocence despite paying the amount. It says, most of the computers and phones that its staff uses was company property and they were very well within the law to monitor how the said gadgets were used. Mr. Taylor unites lawyer despite working hard to ensure an out of court settlement was dismissed by unite and they themselves completed the final stages of negotiation.
Mr. Taylor later sued Unite for unpaid fees. Had the issue gone to full hearing at the court, all details of the phone hacking would become public. British airways would not want to be caught in the web of such headlines and so facilitated a settlement to the lawyer. Questions on how it was done from BA employees were met by confidentiality agreement claims.
