Big Brother Goes High Tech

I've been reading this morning about the high tech ways that employers are monitoring their workers, and it's really astounding how many effective methods tech savvy companies have to keep tabs on their employees. Annalee Newitz, at New ScientistTech, has a pretty thorough overview of the surveillance options currently available to bosses, that will tell them just how you're spending your working hours, as well as let them know some of what you're doing in your off-time. These methods are all legal, at this point, and most states don't even require that employees be informed that they are being monitored. Some of those methods include reading your email (even the personal ones), watching everywhere you go online, closed circuit television (even in bathrooms), hidden global positioning devices in company vehicles, and hidden microphones. Some companies are even going so far as to track down what employees say from home in online forums and blogs, on their own time, on their own personal computers.

Newitz spends a fair bit of time examining the results of this kind of big brotherism in the lives of some employees. One such person posted a complaint on a forum anonymously, and the company went to court and subpoenaed Yahoo! for his real name, and then fired him for what he had said on his own time, from his own computer, without disclosing his identity. Others have lost their jobs for blogging, despite it not being a work-related activity. (I assume for blogging things of which the employer disapproved. I can't imagine anyone would get fired for kissing up to the boss online.) According to Newitz, some of this blog surveillance could be happening even before a prospective employee gets hired:

David Nachman of background-screening company HireRight based in Irvine, California, agrees with Wickre that a job-seeker's blog might affect their chances of getting hired. Traditionally, HireRight has only provided criminal record checks and checks on qualifications and experience, but Nachman says interest in online activity is growing. "We don't offer this service yet, but it's absolutely already happening. Employers are going to blogs and social networking sites when hiring."

In effect this means that online monitoring may be starting before employees even sign their contracts. While some will find this shocking, many tech workers express a kind of fatalism. "There are always ways to find out what individuals are doing, and sometimes that results in people getting fired," says IT administrator John Gilbert. "Everywhere I've worked, there's never been any privacy."

Okay, I haven't processed this enough to have a well thought out response, but I do have an immediate gut reaction. I totally get employers wanting to make sure that employees are actually working when they're being paid to do so, especially with the plethora of potential distractions that are just a click away. The Meow, for example, is a compelling temptation, I am sure. I understand companies wanting to make sure that employees are not spending all their work hours shopping online, surfing porn sites, using the company phone to call Paris, running "Nigerian inheritance" email scams on company computers, or any number of other activities that are a waste of company dollars and employee time, are illegal, or would reflect badly on the business. I even get employers asking employees not to post defamatory statements on their blogs. (If I had an employee who was spending his off hours publicly criticising me as an employer, I would probably assume it was better for us both if we found someone who would be happier doing his job than the disgruntled blogger was.) I'm not oblivious to corporate motivations in this scenario.

I'm striving to be fair, here. However, now that looking "on the one hand" has been accomplished, I'm feeling at liberty to turn my attention to the other. Even having given all this understanding and forebearance to the bosses, my initial reaction to these kinds of tactics is not very enthusiastic. I hope that employers (and the legal system), step lightly in this employee surveillance dance that they are doing. Trying to control the thought lives and off-hours personal expressions of employees is hardly conducive to a productive work environment. Not only are cameras in the bathroom, hidden microphones, and personal emails going public a shocking invasion of privacy, I think they're just plain bad policy.

Employers make more money when they have a stable, loyal, contented workforce, with low turnover, and high levels of experience. Big brother your employees too much and they will not hang around long enough to make you any money. I suspect if you are worried about how your employees are spending their time, it would be better to set performance standards for them, rather than watch them every minute. If they're doing their job to your satisfaction, what does it hurt if they spend a few minutes of each day reading Instapundit? Better to have them content and productive, than burn them out by insisting that every moment of every day be spent in intense work-related concentration. Beyond that, some of this surveillance could bring about the very thing you want to prevent--bad online publicity. Over-monitoring and refusal to allow any personal comforts (such as personal email that's truly personal) are activities begging for that same online criticism that the paranoid companies who instigate such tactics are trying so hard to avoid.

Like I said, I haven't thought this through enough to have a really well synthesized response, but I do know that I'm glad that I don't work for a paranoid employer (unless you count my husband grilling me to make sure I've had enough to eat every day.) I'm also glad my husband works for a small company that actually trusts its employees. He's been there for almost twenty years, and he's by no means alone in his employment longevity. The turnover rate is extremely low. That relationship could not have lasted that long if both he and his boss weren't pretty satisfied with the arrangement. There is no such monitoring going on at his office, and I know Ked would be decidedly upset if there were. (I know such systems are supposed to be hidden, but I'm pretty sure he'd know. Since he's the computer guru there, I don't think they could have set up a system to monitor online activity without him.)

I'm curious, though, how the rest of you respond to the concept of companies monitoring what goes on at the office, both pro and con. Actually, I'm also curious what you think of employers monitoring off-hour activity too. Is there anyone who can defend that one? I can't think of a single positive to the notion that an employer would fire a worker because of an anonymous posting to a chat forum, but maybe someone else has a defense of that position. Anyway, if any of you have something to contribute on this topic, I'm all ears (well, eyes actually, but you know what I mean.)

The Walls Are Watching You--Or They Could Be Soon

Another Minority Report moment, brought to you by Futurismic. Here's what Armchair Anarchist has to say to us today, as he references an article at NewScientist.com, by Tom Simonite:

As if you weren't sick of (or completely immune to) targeted advertising on the internet, the next place it could crop up is on the walls. A UK university is testing a prototype ad screen in a corridor - the screen identifies passers-by via the Bluetooth signals from their mobile devices, and then software agents hold a bidding war in microseconds to decide who gets to display their content. The system will be able to differentiate between different people to ensure no-one sees the same ad twice. I think we just found another good reason to keep the Bluetooth on your phone switched off when you're not using it.

Okay, this is getting kind of creepy. I really love that we're seeing so many technological advances these days, but buildings figuring out who I am by my cell phone or PDA, and pummeling me with ads aimed just at me, is not something that I want to be a part of our brave new world. I suppose it's unavoidable. Advertising Happens. However, this new "wave of the future" is one that I already find irritating, and we haven't even gotten there yet. Apparently, individuals can leave the Bluetooth function off, which would be option number one in my world, if turning it on meant Tide commercials would follow me wherever I go, or worse yet, Pepto Bimol. (Have you ever seen anything more humiliating than the ad campaign with the Pepto Bismol "dance"? A new low in American culture.)

The article suggests that in the future, people will be able to choose to activate the function anonymously, so that the building only recognizes the device, not them. This then would send the ads through, but lets the system know that the device has triggered certain ads before, thus decreasing the chances of repeats. This is the option to use if you like commercials, need variety, but don't mind random content. The other option will be to immerse yourself completely into the Minority Report way of life. You would be able identify yourself, and your profile would let the system know what things interest you, so that everything that comes your way is personally focused--advertising tailored just for you, provided by the highest bidder. This is the option for the marginally insane. Okay, maybe that's hyperbolically harsh, but boy, I'm about as far as I can be from understanding why anyone would intentionally call down the advertising hordes onto their own heads. I really don't have the slightest clue what would make anybody volunteer as an advertising receptacle. It'll be interesting to see how well this kind of thing flies, how many people make themselves available to the ad-osphere. Am I in the majority, or does the rest of the world really long for a Minority Report reality?

You Can't Watch That From Here

You'd think that a society so sure of its own greatness, virtue, and superiority wouldn't be afraid of a little contrast and comparison. Gateway Pundit has the lowdown on the Iranian government's latest efforts to control the thought-lives of its citizens. The targets: satellite dishes, bloggers and student activists--i.e. anything that could tell the Iranian people that they might not have it as good as the Mullahs like to claim, or that the West isn't as evil as depicted in Tehran, or that the War Against All Evil People--meaning everyone who isn't them (especially Jews and Americans), isn't necessarily going as well as they boasted it would. Notice there are still Jews living in Israel, and not all floating around as Mediterranean fish food. Hezbollah was supposed to have had some great victory by now, weren't they? (No, I'm sorry, having some of your people survive the war is not victory. That's mercy.) What's worse from Tehran's point of view, there were actually Muslim governments speaking against the Iranian backed Hezbollah attack of Israel. That's enough reason right there to want to keep information from the Iranian masses. Not only did they not win the war, but the only other acceptable humans on the planet didn't even all root for the right team. Time to clamp down on alternate sources of info!! So, to keep their citizens from getting any more of an inkling that their supreme leaders aren't perfect and invincible, they're fighting an enemy they can probably defeat, at least temporarily. Stationary inanimate objects make easy targets, so they are showing their military prowess by destroying as many satellite dishes as they can. Satellite dishes are illegal, you know. Most evil things are. I'm sorry if this post sounds a little more snide than usual, but good grief, this kind of thing is so pathetic, it just ticks me off. I think about all the people who are stuck in that world and I just get steamed. What a great place to live that must be. Let's sell the satellite dish and move there--whaddaya think?

Seriously--there are about three to four million satellite dishes in Iran, and they're hunting them down and destroying them. Big victory for the Mullahocracy, huh?

Rant Over. Hat tip: Instapundit

Data Mining: Tool Or Travesty?

If you haven't had enough of the National SecurityAgency's latest woes, or are out of the loop about the most recent charges that "the White House is trampling citizens' constitutional rights and creating a surveillance state," here's a summary, and some perspective, from The Weekly Standard.