Remote Work on the Move: The Hidden Risks of Shoulder Surfing
16 January 2026
At the latest Insurance Times Fraud Charter meeting, sponsored by Carpenters Group, education and increasing public awareness of fraud was, once again, on the agenda to be discussed by delegates. However, during the meeting’s interval over lunch, I spent some time talking to a fellow attendee about an issue I had seen with my own eyes on the train journey down to London.
The number of open laptops and phones on the train as I commuted was very noticeable, as was the level of some people went into during conversations with their colleagues. Indeed, the chap sat opposite me was loudly leaving voice notes for colleagues related to a property transaction. It struck me that, despite the industry’s best efforts to educate, there was perhaps a silent acceptance of risk by those faced with the pressures of work and the need to get the job done.
Remote risks
In an increasingly digital world, working remotely has become commonplace. But, for many, the remote office has now become the train, bus or platform café.
The pressure or, dare I say, cultural requirement to be consistently productive introduces a significant risk around working in this manner - not least from the so-called ‘shoulder surfer’.
Shoulder surfing is a low tech, high reward type of surveillance where the perpetrator covertly observes a person’s private information or, worse still, a third party’s private information gleaned from those open laptops readily available on public transport.
The ramifications can be significant - on a personal level, these can covertly capture passwords or pin numbers and then later target at a mobile device, using these details to access banking applications.
There is also the potential for theft of data - be that performance, client or financial - which can lead to the risk of identity theft, false payment redirects or even blackmail in circumstances where private information has been obtained.
Notwithstanding the above, the shoulder surfing risk is often accepted by individuals finding themselves in working environments that are far from secure and where the pressure to perform should not mask the at the cost of basic data security - contributing to what is likely to be a mixture of both a cultural change and technical safeguards.
