The workplace has become a surveillance state
- Reference: 1732696268
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/11/27/workplace_surveillance/
- Source link:
The [1]study , titled "Tracking Indoor Location, Movement and Desk Occupancy in the Workplace," looks at how motion sensing and wireless network technology in buildings is being used to monitor the movement and behavior of office workers and visitors.
"As offices, buildings and other corporate facilities become networked environments, there is a growing desire among employers to exploit data gathered from their existing digital infrastructure or additional sensors for various purposes," the report says. "Whether intentionally or as a byproduct, this includes personal data about employees, their movements and behaviors."
[2]
The case study is part of a series titled "Surveillance and Digital Control at Work" that's overseen by Cracked Labs, an Austria-based non-profit. Produced with support from AlgorithmWatch, Jeremias Prassl (Oxford), UNI Europa and Global Privacy Alliance, and labor rights organization Austrian Arbeiterkammer, the series explores how companies are using personal data in Europe.
[3]
[4]
The use of tracking and analytics technology in the workplace has become a matter of concern in the US as well as Europe, prompting regulators like the US Federal Trade Commission to [5]issue guidance in an effort to deter unlawful practices.
When it comes to surveillance and tracking, companies are collecting increasing amounts of personal information from workers.
In [6]remarks [PDF] presented at Harvard Law School in February, Benjamin Wiseman, associate director of the FTC's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, observed, "When it comes to surveillance and tracking, companies are collecting increasing amounts of personal information from workers. This includes collection of statistics on workers' activities, such as the number of messages workers send or receive as well as the frequency and length of meetings."
While much of this data collection is done through the software applications on employee computers and mobile devices, it's also done through office space monitoring systems from vendors like Cisco, Juniper, Spacewell, and Locatee, according to Cracked Labs.
Cisco, the report explains, uses Wi-Fi access points and other wireless networking infrastructure to track the location of employees, customers, devices and other objects. It does so, in Switchzilla's [7]own [8]words , to "gain insights into how people and things move throughout their physical spaces" and "understand the behavior and location of people (visitors, employees) and things (assets, sensors)." The biz calls its cloud-based location tracking system Cisco Spaces.
[9]
Beyond providing insights into how individuals move within corporate environments, the technology allows "behavioral profiling based on location data." This includes the ability to categorize people into location personas (e.g. "restaurant visitor," "retail area visitor," "VIP loyal member," "returning guest," "employee," etc.) and the ability to conduct proximity monitoring.
[10]NHS to launch 'real-time surveillance system' to prevent future pandemics
[11]Your air fryer might be snitching on you to China
[12]Worker surveillance must comply with credit reporting rules
[13]Smart TVs are spying on everyone
The report noted that Cisco addresses some potential concerns in its privacy data sheet for Spaces and claims that its system is compliant with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Cisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The application of office space monitoring systems has prompted protests in some instances. The Cracked Labs report notes that in 2022, students at US-based Northeastern University objected to the installation of motion sensors from German smart device vendor EnOcean under the desks of graduate student workers.
Students and faculty sent a letter to Northeastern's President Joseph Aoun [14]asking for the removal of the sensors because "they serve no scientific purpose," "they are intimidating," "they change our behaviors," they were installed without consent, and "being surveilled is creepy and unnecessary," among other objections.
[15]
Wolfie Christl, author of the report, in an email to The Register :
Behavioral data collected for purposes like operating a company's networking infrastructure or even highly intrusive video surveillance systems simply shouldn't be used for completely unrelated purposes.
Generally, ubiquitous digital monitoring and profiling undermines employee privacy, dignity, autonomy, and trust in the workplace. Once deployed in the name of 'good,' whether for aggregate analysis, energy efficiency, or improved worker safety, these technologies normalize far-reaching digital surveillance, which may quickly creep into other purposes. There is a high risk that employers misuse the collected data against workers.
Christl acknowledges that some of the use cases promoted by vendors and cited in the study have the potential to be beneficial.
"But employees should not accept any kind of indoor location tracking as long as there are no reliable safeguards that prevent employers from misusing the data for problematic purposes," he said. "In Germany and Austria, an employer would need to negotiate the introduction of such a system with employees, who would have a right to audit how the employer uses the data.
"Generally, the GDPR and labor law might make it difficult or impossible for employers to legally use indoor location tracking in several European countries. The US urgently needs appropriate laws that protect employees from disproportionate surveillance in the workplace." ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/indoortracking
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/cxo&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z0b70grroCZoV3csRxelfwAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/cxo&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0b70grroCZoV3csRxelfwAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/cxo&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0b70grroCZoV3csRxelfwAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/05/us_europe_capitalism/
[6] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Jolt-2-8-24-final.pdf
[7] https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/dna-spaces/q-and-a-c67-741795.html
[8] https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/dna-spaces/solution-overview-c22-742158.html
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/cxo&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0b70grroCZoV3csRxelfwAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/nhs_realtime_surveillance_pandemic/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/05/air_fryer_spying/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/26/worker_surveillance_credit_reporting_privacy_requirement/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/09/smart_tv_spy_on_viewers/
[14] https://news.techworkerscoalition.org/2022/11/29/issue-19/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/cxo&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0b70grroCZoV3csRxelfwAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”
― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
WFH? You wish...
The companies that do this kind of ... shite ... are thsoe that want to see backs in the office, butts on chairs.
I can read ElReg at work just as well as in the home office. As the BOFH remarked at home there was (in the olden times with a single income family) at least the possibility that those slackers would get trouble from their wife when she finds out they are just slacking off.
On the other hand "thankfully, a snipped of code that redirects users clicking on the 'about us' link to a random porn site looks 'just like the matrix'..." (also BOFH)
Surveil ethically?
We have a few devices that must not be removed from a certain area & Spaces is set to alert if they are.
It is very easy to see the benefits of this but it is just as easy to see the use cases that could be put forwards if management wanted to monitor employees. Yes, spaces will allow me to see what device is connecting to APs in an area, it can also tell me the username. From that I can check email logs, firewalls etc to build up a pretty accurate picture of what someone has been doing.
When I swipe into the building (on the few times I attend the site) my employer knows I am there if they look at the logs, I think that's about the level of surveillance I am comfortable with.
The moment someone says "The logs show that you were inactive for 20 minutes when you were supposed to be working on..." then it is time to leave.
Re: Surveil ethically?
"We have a few devices that must not be removed from a certain area"
ASDA do that with their shopping trolleys. At one supermarket it objects if you park in their overflow car park which is next to their store and deploys a gadget to lock one of the wheels so it can't turn. Undeterred I dragged the trolley, screeching and screaming to my car leaving a long skid mark of shredded plastic on the road and completely knackered the mechanism in doing so. They've obviously not thought this out very well. They've even got a trolley shelter in said car park, so it isn't like they are not expecting this to happen. Idiots.
Containment
Wireless signals, and the ability to use them and WAPs to track people, extend through walls and floors, into areas whose occupants have probably not agreed to being tracked.
collection of statistics on workers' activities, such as ... the frequency and length of meetings.
"Our statistics show that workers are spending too much time in meetings. There will be a meeting in the conference room at 2pm to discus how to reduce the time spent in meetings."
"there is a growing desire among"
employers Nazis.
They are Nazis. It's easy to become one, apparently.
I have one question : when has your job been to watch what your employees are doing ?
Your job is to manage, to forecast, to plan.
Not to be slave driver.
Re: "there is a growing desire among"
In my experience, a fair proportion of managers can neither manage, forecast or plan. About the only thing they can do is slave driving.
'nuff said.
"gain insights into how people and things move throughout their physical spaces"
This collects data. There is a gap between data and information which needs to be bridged by analysis. There is a gap between information and insight that needs to be bridged by understanding. Will those bridges be put into use or is it simply more and more unused but potentially dangerous data. As a previous article put it: yellowcake.
This isn't exactly new though.
Back in the last century (well, 1997ish), I went out to lunch with another engineer. He'd come over to apply some updates to a new system and I was there to observe and learn (ironically it was a monitoring system). When we came back from lunch, we went straight back to the machine room where we were carrying out the work.
20 minutes later, I ran up to my desk to grab something. I get called over by my boss. He accuses me of being late back from lunch. Someone had complained I wasn't around! Worse still, in that time he'd gone to a card logging system and got the dates/times my card swiped - and it showed I was late back.
Then I showed him that the time was out on the card logging system, and I had in fact entered the building on time.
Another argument in favour of WFH then. Until the scourge of IoT starts filling in the gap and your fridge goes "you need milk and I have reported that you were on the toilet 4 seconds longer than your daily allowance to your employer"