https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2009/S00019/working-from-home-surveillance-arms-race.htm
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Working from home surveillance arms race |
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The move to working from home means there's a boom in employee surveillance software. Bosses can check workers are hard at it, not leaning back for a Netflix binge.
Companies have used technology to snoop on workers for years. It ranges from spy-in-the-cab devices used to measure truck driver movements to key-loggers counting the number of keystrokes a desk bound employee makes every hour.
If you want you can check if an employee
takes many tea, toilet or lunch breaks. There are even home
detention style ankle bracelets used in warehouses and
similar workplaces to track where everyone
is.
What you measure is what you get.
For many tasks surveillance is plain dumb. It's easier to measure a worker's output. That's what matters.
They earn
their pay as long as they add value, serve customers, clear
call backlogs or otherwise improve profits. It shouldn't
matter how many key strokes, phone calls or trips around the
warehouse floor they make to get
there.
The names of these
products say a lot about the mindset of companies using the
technology:
On top of everyday snooping there are products which let bosses watch what is going on through the webcams on home computers.
One product that does this goes by the name of Sneek....
There's a naming pattern emerging here, at least
the people who make this software are self-aware. You'd have
to worry about managers leafing through brochures for
products with names like Sneek and
StaffCop.
And then there is this example from the Wired
story
"PwC has developed facial recognition software that can log employees’ absences from their computer screens – including for bathroom breaks. The accounting firm insists the technology is to meet compliance regulations as the financial world adjusts to home life."
It's one thing for a company to put this software on computers in its offices, or even on computers that it buys and distributes to staff working from home. Asking people to install the software on their own hardware is another level of evil.
The idea of watching people in their homes using a
screen was talked about 70 years ago. That's when George
Orwell wrote 1984. In the book Big Brother has a screen
where government spies watch people in their homes all the
time.
Once again we are at a point where 1984 is a training manual, not a warning.
Where they can, workers are fighting back. Wired magazine's story is about the resistance movement fighting home employee surveillance.
As with the bosses, many of the weapons workers use to counter surveillance are digital. It's an arms race. A range of new software helps workers get around surveillance. Surveillance software companies respond to block the blockers then the blockers block back.
One trick mentioned in the Wired story, which works if you have a powerful computer, is to use a virtual machine. That is, in effect, a software computer that lives inside of your computer. It can fence off the surveillance software.
There is software to fake mouse movements and software to emulate keyboard use. People even stick tape over webcams or microphones and then claim the hardware isn't working. The potential to fight back is as unlimited at the potential for snooping.
Working from home surveillance arms race was first posted at billbennett.co.nz.
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