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Workplace Surveillance Becoming More Common
An anonymous reader writes For better or worse, surveillance technology is becoming more common in the workplace. These tools are being used to measure and monitor employees, with the promise changing how people work. "Through these new means, companies have found, for example, that workers are more productive if they have more social interaction. So a bank's call center introduced a shared 15-minute coffee break, and a pharmaceutical company replaced coffee makers used by a few marketing workers with a larger cafe area. The result? Increased sales and less turnover." Of course, this kind of monitoring raises privacy concerns. "Whether this kind of monitoring is effective or not, it's a concern," said Lee Tien, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
Surveillance is only the tool. How it is used (abused) is the key. For example, a camera in the break-room kills good will. Pointedly saying we will be monitoring, but not the break-room increases good will.
Wait what, social interaction makes people more productive? You mean they don't feel like their existence is validated by the calm fuzzy warmth of fabric covered cubicle walls? They need to talk to each other too? But what if they criticize management? Managers' fragile egos can't handle even the possibility of criticism of any kind! You there! Stop talking! Eyes back on the computer screen!
Seriously - they needed surveillance to figure out that workers were happier and more productive when they had some shared sense of purpose?
What next - needing surveillance to figure out people are bothered by random loud buzzing noises?
shorten that to:
unions are needed.
again.
sweatshops (for computer guys) are on the return. if you and I are not careful, we will be so close to the old ways, we will have to fight that old war back again. we already lost our weekends and we lost time and a half for overtime (my grandfather used to get 1.5x, 2x and 3x time for time past normal work hours). we don't get that - we're now the evil thing called 'exempt' and we get cheated out of our own time and extra pay.
add to insult the fact that all corp firewalls have a MitM proxy in them, corp windows boxes are handed out preloaded with certs installed (for the mitm firewall entry) and at some places (like where I work) its been known that spyware and remote mic/camera stuff can be activated and logged/reviewed by your boss. how do I know: because in .de they have to disclose this and my work has offices in .de ; in the US they don't disclose what they do when spying but over in .de they do).
if we dont fight back, things will continue to get worse.
oh right, we don't have unions so we are all afraid of speaking out, for sake of our jobs.
well, so we have 2 problems to solve, then.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Indeed, recording people with legal authority who have the ability to easily ruin people's lives is a whole different case. Especially when the recording is happening in public.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.