Slashdot Mirror
Walmart's Newly Patented Technology For Eavesdropping On Workers Presents Privacy Concerns (buzzfeed.com)
Walmart has patented an audio surveillance system which can be used to listen to conversations between employees and customers at checkout. From a report: The "listening to the frontend" technology, as its called, is one of many futuristic ideas Walmart has sought to patent in recent years as it competes with Amazon for domination of the retail industry. While there's no guarantee that Walmart will ever build this technology, the patent shows the company is thinking about using tech not just to facilitate deliveries or make its warehouses more efficient, but also to manage its workforce, which is the largest in the United States. Walmart declined to comment on whether it plans to use audio sensors to measure the productivity of its staff in the near future, but said in a statement, "We're always thinking about new concepts and ways that will help us further enhance how we serve customers, but we don't have any further details to share on these patents at this time."
Wife: Honey what do we want to eat from the deli counter?
Greybeard husband: Oh i dont know, maybe the square root of a zero inch submarine sandwich with extra semicolon quote semicolon and a side of drop table customers, payroll, sales.
[incoherent screaming from the office]
Greybeard husband: ah! looks like someone already ordered one!
Good people go to bed earlier.
But, if implemented, they won't use it to the benefit of workers, they'll use to to target workers, run them like they're robots, and when they fall apart, fire them for poor job performance, then hire immigrants who will accept shitty pay and shitty conditions because at least some terrorist organization isn't trying to make them into suicide bombers, or drug lords shooting at them. There's plenty of precedent for this sort of behavior from employers and there's zero reason to believe that's going to change, especially from a company with such a poor track record of how it treats it's employees, and that has to keep wages as low as possible so they can sell their shitty goods at the lowest prices possible. There is NO GOOD USE for 'technology' like this because it ALWAYS gets abused.