In an acknowledgment that snooping is on the rise—and raising eyebrows—on May 7th a New York state law kicked in requiring firms to tell staff about any electronic monitoring of their phone, email and internet activity. Corporate scofflaws can be fined between $500 and $3,000 per violation. New York joins Connecticut and Delaware, which have mandated similar disclosures since the late 1990s and early 2000s, respectively, and Europe, where companies have had to prove that monitoring has a legitimate business basis—such as preventing intellectual-property theft or boosting productivity—since 1995. More such rules are poised to emerge. They are unlikely to deter more offices from embracing Big Brotherliness.
Startups are offering more sophisticated threat assessments. One, Awareness Technologies, sells software called Veriato, which gives workers a risk score, so that the employer can assess how likely they are to leak data or steal company secrets. Another, Deepscore, claims its face and voice-screening tools can determine how trustworthy an employee is.
A further big reason for companies to surveil workers is to gauge—and enhance—productivity. The past couple of years have seen an explosion in tools available to managers that claim not just to tell whether Bob from marketing is working, but how hard. Employers can follow every keystroke or mouse movement, gain access to webcams and microphones, scan emails for gossip or take screenshots of devices—often, as with products such as Flexispy, leaving the surveilled workers none the wiser. Some monitoring features are becoming available on widely used office software like Google Workspace, Micro soft Teams or Slack.
Many surveillance products are powered by ever cleverer artificial intelligence (ai). Enaible claims its ai can measure how quickly employees complete tasks as a way of weeding out slackers. Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled ai software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. RemoteDesk alerts managers if workers eat or drink on the job.
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Firms have valid reasons to monitor workers. Safety is one: tracking staff’s whereabouts in a building can help employers locate them in case of emergency. Another is to keep money and data safe. To ensure employees are not sharing sensitive information, banks such as JPMorgan Chase trawl through calls, chat records and emails, and even track how long staff are in the building. In 2021 Credit Suisse, another lender, began requesting access to personal devices used for work.Startups are offering more sophisticated threat assessments. One, Awareness Technologies, sells software called Veriato, which gives workers a risk score, so that the employer can assess how likely they are to leak data or steal company secrets. Another, Deepscore, claims its face and voice-screening tools can determine how trustworthy an employee is.
A further big reason for companies to surveil workers is to gauge—and enhance—productivity. The past couple of years have seen an explosion in tools available to managers that claim not just to tell whether Bob from marketing is working, but how hard. Employers can follow every keystroke or mouse movement, gain access to webcams and microphones, scan emails for gossip or take screenshots of devices—often, as with products such as Flexispy, leaving the surveilled workers none the wiser. Some monitoring features are becoming available on widely used office software like Google Workspace, Micro soft Teams or Slack.
Many surveillance products are powered by ever cleverer artificial intelligence (ai). Enaible claims its ai can measure how quickly employees complete tasks as a way of weeding out slackers. Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled ai software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. RemoteDesk alerts managers if workers eat or drink on the job.
Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office
The Big Brotherly boss will see you now—and always