The move to working from home during the lockdown has brought with it a lot of changes. The workplace water cooler is now your home fridge, interactions with co-workers involve changing diapers and litter boxes, and the boss who’d examine your work over your shoulder is now monitoring you through your webcam and a tracking app on your phone.
Some workers find this creepy.
While most businesses rely on the honor system or occasionally check in on their staff, some take a more invasive approach. Employers are deploying software that documents the websites you visit while tracking keystrokes and mouse movements and apps that track your location through your phone. The software Time Doctor, for instance, takes a picture of you through your webcam every 10 minutes.
For workers at Amazon or Subway, going back to work has meant the use of infrared cameras that read their temperatures to determine if they’re sick. The collection of biodata that has been all so common among college football programs has now reached your office job.
Not all of it is lockdown-related. Walmart is able to listen in on workers (and customers) with its sensors. And in Boston, a company called Humanyze has created a badge that will, among other things, be able to track if employees are sitting or standing. “Humanyze” indeed.
It’s early in the employee surveillance movement. Workers are unsure what their privacy rights are, as laws lag behind technological progress. We have yet to find out what it really means when Big Brother is the one signing your paychecks.
