Broadspectrum chairwoman Diane Smith-Gander has revealed the refugee camp operator's most senior personnel keep track of activists and proxy advisers by monitoring their Facebook and Twitter profiles.

Broadspectrum chair Diane Smith-Gander (left) and BHP Billiton group company secretary Margaret Taylor address the Governance Institute. Credit:Wayne Taylor

The company, formerly named Transfield Services, has turned to social media surveillance to help it cope with protests over claims of humans rights abuses inside the government's offshore asylum seeker processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island that the company has a critical $2.2 billion contract to operate.

"Over the recent period with Broadspectrum we were dealing with activists who were trying to use us as a tool of change in government policy, which was not our role and clearly not a debate we were going to step in to," Ms Smith-Gander said.