No, not on a laptop your employer manages. The monitoring happens on the device itself, before a VPN encrypts anything.
What solves it instead
- Check whether the browser is managed: in Chrome, open the menu at the top right and look at the bottom, or enter chrome://management in the address bar.
- Keep private browsing off the work laptop: use your own phone or computer.
- At the office, use mobile data on your own device instead of the work Wi-Fi if you do not want the work network to see which sites you visit.
The facts
| About | Word for word from the source | Source, checked on |
|---|---|---|
| What a managed browser is | If you use Chrome at school or work, it might be managed, or set up and maintained by a school, company, or other group. | support.google.com, |
| What the administrator can do | If your Chrome browser is managed, your administrator can set up or restrict certain features, install extensions, monitor activity, and control how you use Chrome. | support.google.com, |
| The same for a whole device | If your Chromebook is managed, your administrator can set up or restrict certain features, install apps, monitor activity, and control how you use your Chromebook. | support.google.com, |
| What the work network can see | Websites you visit, including Google sites, and organizations that manage your network, like your school, employer, or internet service provider, may be able to observe your activity in Incognito. | support.google.com, |
| What EU law says about monitoring at work | Read the literal textThose rules shall include suitable and specific measures to safeguard the data subject's human dignity, legitimate interests and fundamental rights, with particular regard to the transparency of processing, the transfer of personal data within a group of undertakings, or a group of enterprises engaged in a joint economic activity and monitoring systems at the work place. | eur-lex.europa.eu, |
What a VPN does change
A VPN encrypts the traffic between a device and the VPN server, so the network it is connected to only sees the connection to that server. That helps on your own device on the work or guest Wi-Fi: the network no longer sees which sites you visit. It does nothing against software your employer installed on a work laptop, which sees your activity before it enters the tunnel. Many employers also provide their own VPN to reach the company network; that one is run by the employer. Check when a VPN is worth paying for
Without a VPN
- You
- Your networkinternet provider, or the Wi-Fi of work, school or a café
Sees: which sites you visit and when. With HTTPS, not what you do there.
- The website
Sees: your IP address, and with it roughly where you are and who your internet provider is.
With a VPN
- You
- Your networkinternet provider, or the Wi-Fi of work, school or a caféEncrypted tunnel
Sees: only that you are connected to a VPN server, and how much data you send.
- VPN serverrun by the VPN provider
Sees: which sites you visit, as your internet provider did before.
- The website
Sees: the IP address of the VPN server. It still recognises you by your login and cookies.
What we did not check
3
- Which monitoring software your employer actually uses, and what it records: that differs per company, and we have not tested any.
- What your employer is allowed to monitor: that depends on the law in your country and on the company's policy.
- Other browsers and operating systems: the quotes come from Google's help pages for Chrome and Chromebook.
Next step
- Check whether the browser is managed: in Chrome, open the menu at the top right and look at the bottom, or enter chrome://management in the address bar.