His comments follow news last week that Centrelink is using keylogging software to monitor staff access to company records. The surveillance has led to the sacking of 19 staff. Similar steps are being taken at the Australian Tax Office (ATO) where 27 workers have been sacked.

Centrelink CEO Jeff Whalan dubbed the surveillance a "success" and said there would be no apologies for the tough stance the welfare agency has taken to protect public records.

Professor Peter Croll, from QUT's Faculty of Information and Technology, said the current approach to privacy regulation was to wait for workers to breach privacy laws and then take action.

"What's happening is that we have organizations snooping on their staff to see if their staff are snooping," he said."This just isn't the answer."

Professor Croll supported privacy protection and moves to prevent staff from snooping, but said organizations shouldn't just rely on audits. Next month Professor Croll and his research team at QUT's Information Security Institute will release the first software prototype said to be suitable for all businesses to prevent snooping by staff.