To refuse to provide bank statement to my work to prove I was in the office

[HanExplorer]

I’ve found myself in a very unusual situation and am standing firm so far despite pressure.

I work in a hybrid role with a requirement to attend our office twice a week, this is measured monthly based on card swipe data. On one of the days in May, I forgot my pass so was issued a temporary one to use that day.

Earlier this month my manager flagged I was showing a day short for office attendance in May and said I’d need to make up a further day in June. I looked at the dates they had on record and quickly realised the missing one was when I had the temporary pass so that obviously hadn’t registered on the system.

I explained this to my manager and she still maintained I’d need to attend an extra day to balance the totals on the system as there ‘wasn’t any record of me attending’.

I realised I’d spent money in the on site restaurant that day and there’d be a record on my bank showing the company name. I screenshotted this on my phone, cropped it so you could see the date and sent it to my manager.

She has checked with her manager and told me that I need to provide a copy of a bank statement which shows my name and the transaction - that would of course also show all my other activity!!

This has been dragging on and I’m standing firm so far, but I’ve had a call booked in with my manager and her manager for tomorrow and I’m wary of what they are going to say.

My office is over an hours train journey each way so not a case of driving 5 minutes down the road to work a further day - regardless, I don’t feel I should do out of principle.

do you have a record of the temp pass in any other way? like an entry in a service desk system?

Sticking physical card over the top then taking a photo will block any ability to view. Not that her work could do anything with knowing the cost of OP's car rental and shopping bill, even if they wanted to.

@HanExplorer An Option to easily redact documents is to stick them in power point, put black boxes over all the bits you don't want seen then take a screenshot and send that. You can't unhide stuff in a screenshot and you can close the original so it is never saved.

A bank branch might print for you only the relevant transactions, you could ask.

My banking app allows me to download PDFs for individual transactions. Shows proof of purchase, but doesn’t give them access to your full banking transactions.

That’s a completely different issue. Yes, the company is seriously lax if it is not recording/logging visitors and temporary pass issue and OP is within her rights to flag that to senior management as an issue (if there was a fire and the building evacuated, they’d have no record of people on site) but that doesn’t fix her issue. Either she sends the bank statement (heavily redacted) or she goes in and makes sure that she has her security pass every time she attends. It is possible that IT can confirm she logged onto her laptop/a computer in the building, so it may also be worth emailing them too as a last resort.

Can't you print a copy of your bank statement, redact it with a black marker and scan it?

Who was it that issued you with a temporary pass? And what is the purpose of a pass that does not register when swiped?!

So every time someone forgets their pass they're classed as absent, unless they prove they bought food on the premises?

Surely the temp pass should still be assigned to your name. Or it comes up on the system as 'temp13', and whoever issues the passes has attributed that pass number to you.

Their system sucks really severely?!

This would be the logical thing to do. However I suspect OP is going to dig her heels in and not compromise because she doesn't want to.
Some rules are stupid but we just have to suck them up. As the manager I would say safeguard your sensitive data and get on with it, or do the extra day and stop wasting everyone's time.

Why not just get security to look at CCTV and confirm you were there? Can they not just check your photo on your pass and look at CCTV for the time you were there and confirm it, without anyone else needing to see and faces be redacted? I would definitely be looking for a new job rather than work for someone willing to waste everyone's time like this, jeez!

What the fuck is their problem , are you sure it’s a company your work for and not attendance at an open prison????

I can’t believe they are so strict and pedantic. Where is the flexibility and trust? It’s an office day they’re quibbling over not whether or not you attended open heart surgery. Did anyone die??????

Where the fuck do you work?! I couldn’t imagine treating someone in my team like this. Why are you not being trusted over one day?

Yes, you can do that. Delete other activity with a permanent marker.

As long as your name and account number is shown and the relevant payment, that will suffice.

Good luck, let us know how you get on but I'm sure it will be fine.

I get your wanting to keep bank information private. But also find it disappointing that your employer doesn't accept a screenshot as evidence to mitigate what is realistically a very minor alleged infraction.

However, if you genuinely have the evidence in hard copy I would go ahead and print it, and if you wanted redact any irrelevant information. Then I would produce it, highlighting their lack of trust is disappointing, and perhaps suggest an apology is in order.

I also wonder what other evidence they could potentially access to prove you were on site. Such as a visitors book if you had to sign for a temporary pass; computer logs detailing where you accessed files etc from; on site CCTV of areas you would have visited; or other colleagues vouching for your attendance.

@HanExplorer just checked on my banking app and you can highlight a transaction and open it to obtain all the details - payee, date, time. I would ask if this would be sufficient as requiring your bank statement is an invasion of privacy when they simply need proof that the transaction took place place within work hours on the date you were in the office.

I might also contact HR to see if they can intervene on this basis. This feels like over-reach on the part of your managers.

This wouldn’t bother me. I would skip in to her office with glee waving the bank statement proving I was right and she was wrong.

I don’t give two hoots if she sees that I spent £98 in Tesco and £40 in H&M. But if you don’t want them seeing other info, print it out and with black marker cross out your balance and other sensitive transactions. These are your work colleagues, do you think they will use your transactions in some kind of high end financial fraud?? Can’t see the fuss.

And then when her company asks again for personal data, you just roll over and comply?

Sometimes you do have to push back, and there is definately reason to do so here. OP's company is highlighting some serious problems here in how it safeguards staff and how it handles data.

The answer to that is not to just hand over more personal data.

I don't know.

But if she could very easily prove via her redacted bank statement that despite:

No record of her pass being used
No record of her being issued a temporary pass
No security staff vouching for her having been issued a temporary pass
None of her colleagues seeing her in the office
No interaction with anyone in the office
No attendance at any meetings in the office
Refusal to ask the one colleague to confirm her office attendance
No record of her connecting to the office network
No CCTV evidence proving she was there

that she was indeed in the office, why wouldn't she just provide it? The only reason not to, in the face of all the evidence pointing to her not being in the office, is if it doesn't show what she wants it to show.

For the peace is just redact the other transactions and give them your statement, but your work is being ridiculous. Do they not have records of who they give temp access passes to? That’s probably a breach of ISO standards. I couldn’t work for a company that is so petty and had that level of distrust for me. I would start job hunting but my toxic trait can be matching petty with petty.

I am not comfortable using systems to redact my statement (which is paperless), my DP works in a cyber type role and has told me these programs are not fool proof.

You've posted this after dozens of posters suggested you print it out and use a sharpie or similar to block out any other transactions. No programs involved!

why can’t you print out your bank statement and use a sharpie to redact?

On the other hand:

Her company is not keeping an accurate record of who is in the office.
Her company does not trust their employees.
Her company has demonstratably poor policies around data handling.
Her company has no procedures in place to safeguard staff lone working.

And the answer to all those issues is to provide a bit of paper with a bank transaction on it?

@HanExplorer I have to say, I do understand why you're pissed off but providing your printed, redacted bank statement the next time you are in the office is not going to kill you. In fact, I'd be quite petty to provide all this information with some overkill to ensure I was proved right.

Why are you not so keen to provide this information? You seem to have an answer for everything suggested so what's going on?

I am amazed that they don't have a record of who they issue temporary passes to if it is that important that they know who is in and when.

Just print your bank statement and get a thick black permanent marker pen and cross out all other transactions. Very quick and easy to do.

I would also raise a complaint at the highest level and ask them to overhaul their systems because their demands for evidence means that they are calling you a liar.

I think I would be worried in general on the lack of trust. Sounds like they have an issue with you or your office attendance in general. I can't imagine spending so much time/ energy over one day discrepancy.
I would be careful either up your days for a bit or keep a very careful record of all communication with your manager and your performance. I would also make sure you keep to your days in the office strictly as it looks like they are looking for a reason to pull you up.