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Dutch Companies Not Allowed To Fitness-Track Their Employees (www.nu.nl)
An anonymous reader writes: The Dutch Privacy Authority made it known today that companies are not allowed to gather their employees' health data from wearable devices [original, in Dutch] such as the Fitbit. Of the two companies that were mentioned in this case, one of them had access to employee sleep patterns. In both cases the employees had given their employers permission to use this data. However, according to the Privacy Authority it is impossible to truly give 'free consent' when there is a 'financial dependency.'
It should be some sort of middle-ground class. Overweight people generally know they will spend more on various things due to their obesity, and are willing to accept this as often being overweight is a choice (however, exiting that state is much less so, only some manage it). If you are able to do the work satisfactorily, the employer should be required to treat you as they would any other employee with similar performance, with the understanding that extra costs due to your weight would be born by you (For example, if you're 800 lbs and require a $10,000 office chair to hold your weight, the company pays $500 or whatever they would have for standard furniture, the employee pays the rest). This would be a deviation from "reasonable accommodations" as you'd have to make for disabled persons, but I think it's a fair deviation in that nobody chooses to lose their legs (or whatever) but people do, over time, choose to be overweight.
The overweight should be protected from harassment at work due to their condition. It's not helpful and it's just plain rude.
If you don't provide at least base protections for the overweight at work, enough that they can at least keep their job and progress in it as normal, here's the deal: You're just going to end up paying for them in your taxes when they lose their job and end up on welfare. Consider that before you say "Fatties deserve the insults and I shouldn't have to work beside one!"
And yes, you don't have to put up with certain other bad life decisions, such as someone who never washes. But you have to understand that while that guy can wash tonight and the problem "goes away", the fat guy can't just stop eating tonight and have the problem disappear for you tomorrow. A lasting solution takes well over a year and from years of medical study, still provably has a low chance of permanent success.
Now, I'm a libertarian, so obviously, in my la-la-land world I'd just say fuck it, no regulations at all one way or the other and no taxes, let the overweight build their own companies and compete on their own terms (or find companies that have a heart), but that's not how it is right now and if you want a "right now" solution that doesn't involve pressing a reset button on government, you need to fit it into what we've got. I believe this is a reasonable compromise.
FWIW, I'm an obese IT guy myself (about 295 lbs) and I have not experienced any issues at work regarding my weight, from colleagues or in any other fashion. However, I completely believe it is an issue elsewhere. As to how I ended up this way? Several decades of bad diet that started from bullies at school and a ridiculously difficult body and mind that really just doesn't want to lose weight. I'm sure if you tied me to a chair 24 hours a day and didn't feed me more than 800 calories a day I'd be thin in a few months. But think about that yourself---pretty sure that counts as torture! Other methods outside of surgery don't work because your brain just doesn't want to let it happen. Until you're overweight don't say "willpower" because you seriously don't get it. Those that were overweight and are now thin do get it and know it's easier to quit smoking.
If by virtue of your employment (job), an employer is required to provide for your healthcare expenses, then they are asking you for something that is job-related if they ask for fitness data.
I happen to think this is a good argument for not requiring employers to provide for your healthcare expenses.
Exactly. Fortunately, in the Netherlands your boss has nothing* to do with your health insurance. I've always found the American system completely insane, having friends lose insurance simply because they are fired. You don't want your boss to provide you with housing or holidays, why would s/he have anything to do with your health insurance? That only causes trouble like Christian employers not wanting to cover contraception/abortion and things like this where your sleeping or eating habits suddenly because a rightful concern of your employer
*) they can offer collectively bargain insurance, which can have slightly lower premiums, but it's usually something like 10 euro per month max. Also, they have some liability for you if you call in sick, which is justified on the grounds that sick leave is very often work related (stress, accidents)
It hasn't taken governments so long; there are other governments who do have stronger privacy protections (e.g., the Netherlands). It's American voters who are the problem.
American voters have all been taught about the American Revolution in a special, narrow way that primes us to conceive of tyranny as something that comes exclusively from governments. We've forgotten about the tyranny that come from allowing an aristocracy to exercise overwhelming power. That's what government was in most places in the world prior to the 1700s: minorities of powerful individuals who advanced their mutual interests by imposing their collective will on the majority and calling it government by traditional or god-given right.
The single most important event in the history of Western liberty was the Black Death. A medieval peasant couldn't take his labor elsewhere if he was unsatisfied with conditions on the manor; the landlords were effectively an agricultural cartel. But with nearly the entire work force exterminated by plague in many areas, labor prices rose. It became feasible for a peasant to take his labor elsewhere to sell -- if he wasn't caught and forced back onto the manor. The Black Death was the first crack in the aristocratic monopsony hold upon the labor market. That's why serfdom was enforced by law (which the aristocrats made) in so many places, and why attempts to re-create aristocracy relied upon the slave trade (the US South) or the legal and economic subjugation of new groups of people (colonialism).
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