Digitalisation and OSH

What’s the issue?

Wide-ranging digital technologies being deployed across various industries bring risks and opportunities for businesses, workers and OSH.

While some technologies could reduce or better manage OSH risks, such as automation or robotics taking over dirty, dangerous, and demeaning jobs, others could create new risks or exacerbate existing ones, not least because the very context of work is altered dramatically for many workers.

It is also important to note that there are billions of people worldwide who have never accessed the internet, so there is a digital divide.

How do we see it?

Such technologies can make work safer, healthier and more efficient through preventing people from doing hazardous work, sophisticatedly monitoring health and safety, and facilitating informed decision-making and learning through vast amounts of data and intelligence.

Businesses must ensure health and safety is considered within the design and implementation stages, along with worker participation, as such new technologies can introduce new complex and unprecedented risks. This is because rapid and unchecked technology adoption in working environments can pose a real risk to workers and to well-established workers’ rights, particularly for those in higher vulnerability groups such as migrant or low-skilled workers.

Current OSH regulations might not adequately address the evolving and emerging risks, so we support the development of fit-for-purpose legislation and the periodic review for updated and adaptable regulatory frameworks. OSH professionals together with other people-related and legal professions need to have presence in the debate on this.

This policy position represents IOSH's view as of April 2024 based on the best evidence available to us. We will review it periodically and reserve the right to change and update it drawing on new information.