Avon and Somerset Police this week confirmed a former officer was dismissed after she was found weighing her laptop keyboard down with photo frames to simulate activity.
The former officer, referred to only as Sergeant X, was dismissed following what police said was an accelerated hearing, which ultimately ruled she had committed gross misconduct.
Sergeant X recorded keystrokes that were three to eight times the volume of her colleagues in similar roles.
Investigating the case, Avon and Somerset Police’s Professional Standards Department (PSD) concluded that Sergeant X deployed the trick during “the majority of shifts” she worked in April and May 2025.
The same woman’s keystrokes were recorded as abnormally high throughout 2024, the police said, and a formal investigation into her conduct began in June 2025.
According to an official statement, Sergeant X “admitted using a corner of a picture frame to weigh down the keys so her laptop would not go into sleep mode, and she could therefore monitor calls on a separate screen during a time in which she suffered challenges in her personal life.”
The police did not describe the nature of these other calls, nor specify whether the woman was working from home at the time, although the latter sounds like a distinct possibility.
The Register contacted Avon and Somerset Police for further details.
Craig Holden, chair of the misconduct panel and former assistant chief constable, ruled that Sergeant X’s actions amounted to gross misconduct, but in a rare move, decided to preserve her anonymity “after considering representations.”
Detective superintendent Larisa Hunt, the head of the PSD, said: “It is extremely disappointing an officer has behaved in a way which could not only discredit the police force, but also undermine the public confidence in respect of our duties and responsibilities.
“We know officers and staff deal with immense pressure and high workloads, and while Sergeant X had some mitigating circumstances, it’s unacceptable for an officer to act in this deliberate and deceitful way by abusing the trust placed in her, by making it appear she was working when she was not.
“We recognise the overwhelming majority of our officers and staff work hard to protect the public.”
According to ExpressVPN research in 2025, 85 percent of British workplaces snoop on remote staff’s activity.
Of all the employers to track this kind of thing, we would imagine that the police would be high among the organizations with the most oversight.
WFH-ers looking for more sophisticated ways of deceiving productivity-tracking employers could look for the classic mouse jigglers, which come in hardware and software forms and are available for as cheap as just a few dollars.
There is also no shortage of options for automatic keyboard presser machines, either to buy or 3D print, should you have the means.
Don’t confuse this with an official Reg endorsement for such practices, however. You never know how sophisticated any employer’s methods of tracking remote workers are. Some won’t even detect activity on second monitors, while others, like Avon and Somerset Police’s, will compare your keystroke volume to your peers.
Sergeant X’s case is not an isolated one. US bank Wells Fargo ousted at least a dozen staffers from its wealth management and investment management divisions in 2024 for falsifying keyboard activity. ®