Screen-based work, AI tools and the Display Screen Equipment Regulations

Digital collar work is mostly screen work: reviewing AI output, handling tickets, moderating content, writing prompts, checking data. In Great Britain the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 set specific duties for employers whose staff habitually use screens, including a rule about software that checks people's work. This page sets out what they require.

The short answer: for employees who habitually use display screen equipment as a significant part of their normal work, the employer must assess the risks of their workstations, plan breaks or changes of activity, provide eye and eyesight tests on request, and give training and information (regs 2 to 7). Workstations must meet minimum standards, and in designing software and tasks the employer must take into account that no quantitative or qualitative checking facility may be used without the knowledge of the operators or users (Schedule para 4).

Who is covered

The Regulations define (reg 1(2)):

• a user as an employee who habitually uses display screen equipment as a significant part of their normal work;
• an operator as a self-employed person who does so;
• display screen equipment as any alphanumeric or graphic display screen, regardless of the display process;
• a workstation as the screen equipment with its software, keyboard or other input device, accessories, peripherals such as the chair, desk and telephone, and the immediate work environment around it.

They do not apply to drivers' or control cabs, screens on board a means of transport, equipment mainly intended for public use, portable systems not in prolonged use, calculators, cash registers and equipment with a small display, or window typewriters (reg 1(4)).

Workstation assessment

The employer must make a suitable and sufficient analysis of workstations used for its undertaking by users, regardless of who provided them, and of workstations it provided that are used by operators, to assess the health and safety risks (reg 2(1)). Because this covers workstations "regardless of who has provided them", it reaches a user's own equipment where it is used for the employer's work. The assessment must be reviewed if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or there has been a significant change, and the risks identified must be reduced to the lowest extent reasonably practicable (reg 2(2) and (3)).

Any workstation that may be used for the undertaking must meet the requirements in the Schedule, to the extent that the component is present, the requirement serves health, safety and welfare, and the task makes it appropriate (reg 3, Schedule para 1). They cover the screen (clear characters, stable image, adjustable brightness and contrast, swivel and tilt, no glare), a separate tiltable keyboard, a large enough desk, a stable chair with adjustable seat height and back, a footrest for anyone who wants one, space, lighting, glare, noise, heat and humidity.

Software and checking facilities

When designing, selecting, commissioning and modifying software, and designing tasks using display screen equipment, the employer must take into account these principles (Schedule para 4):

• software must be suitable for the task;
• software must be easy to use and, where appropriate, adaptable to the user's level of knowledge or experience; "no quantitative or qualitative checking facility may be used without the knowledge of the operators or users";
• systems must give users feedback on their performance;
• systems must display information in a format and at a pace adapted to users;
• the principles of software ergonomics must be applied.

Keystroke counts, activity scores, quality sampling and AI review of a person's output can all be ways of checking work done on screen, so check that users know when they are in use. Data protection law adds its own rules on monitoring; see UK employee monitoring rules.

Breaks and changes of activity

The employer must plan users' activities so that their daily work on display screen equipment is periodically interrupted by breaks or changes of activity that reduce their workload at the screen (reg 4). A queue or task allocation tool that keeps feeding screen tasks without interruption should be set up to allow for this. Rest breaks under the Working Time Regulations are separate; see software-set rotas.

Eye and eyesight tests

• A user, or an employee who is to become one, can ask for an appropriate eye and eyesight test by a competent person, which the employer must arrange as soon as practicable or, for a future user, before they become a user (reg 5(1) and (2)).
• Further tests must be provided at regular intervals, though no one has to be tested against their will (reg 5(3) and (6)).
• A user with visual difficulties that may reasonably be considered to be caused by screen work can ask for a test as soon as practicable (reg 5(4)).
• The employer must provide special corrective appliances appropriate for the work where normal ones cannot be used and the test shows they are needed (reg 5(5)).

Training and information

Users and future users must get adequate health and safety training in the use of any workstation they may be required to work on, before they become users, and again whenever the organisation of a workstation is substantially modified (reg 6). Operators and users must be given adequate information about health and safety relating to their workstations and the measures taken under the Regulations (reg 7). Switching a team onto a new AI platform with a different interface may be such a modification.

Practical steps

• Employers: identify who is a user, including remote and hybrid staff, and assess their workstations wherever they work. Review the assessment when tools or ways of working change.
• Before introducing software that measures or checks people's work, tell the users what it checks, and give them feedback on performance.
• Build breaks or non-screen tasks into task allocation, and offer eye tests and training.
• Workers: if you use a screen for a significant part of your normal work, you can ask for an eye and eyesight test and ask what measures your employer took after assessing your workstation (reg 7). You can ask whether any tool checks your work on screen.

For general duties when software sets targets and pace, see algorithmic management and health and safety. This page covers Great Britain and is general information on the law as at 2 November 2026, not legal or medical advice.