A Third of UK Firms Using 'Bossware' To Monitor Workers' Activity, Survey Reveals (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0179263896
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/15/1747238/a-third-of-uk-firms-using-bossware-to-monitor-workers-activity-survey-reveals
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/14/uk-firms-bossware-monitor-workers-activity
> Private companies are most likely to deploy in-work surveillance and one in seven employers are recording or reviewing screen activity, according to a UK-wide survey that estimates the extent of office snooping.
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> The findings, shared with the Guardian by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), are based on responses from hundreds of UK managers and suggest there has been a recent growth in computerised work surveillance. In 2023, less than a fifth of people thought they were being monitored by an employer, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found. The finding that about a third of managers report their organisations are monitoring workers' online activities on employer-owned devices is probably an underestimate, as roughly the same proportion said they don't know what tracking their organisations do.
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> Many monitoring systems are aimed at preventing insider threats and safeguarding sensitive information as well as detecting productivity dips. But the trend appears to be causing unease. A large minority of managers are opposed to the practice, saying it undermines trust with staff and invades their personal privacy, the CMI found.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/14/uk-firms-bossware-monitor-workers-activity
Does this mean the return of the "Boss Key"? (Score:2)
You know, so I can hit F11 and have /. turn into a spreadsheet.
Copilot as big brother? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since MS is baking copilot into everything, I wonder how long until they weaponize copilot like this. Years ago when they had Delve in O365, I had a manager using that to keep track of the documentation I was working on and we got into a pretty nasty argument when he was critiquing a doc that was in the ROUGH DRAFTS folder because... you know... it wasn't completed... because... it was a rough draft.
It wouldn't take much for them to use copilot to aggregate the metrics with your emails received/sent, reading/scrolling time on an email, various docs, and Teams messages. That data could be used to infer how "busy" (idle?) you are.
Re: (Score:1)
Congrats! You've just discovered the real use case for Windows Recall.
Re: (Score:2)
No need even for AI scariness, [1]Viva Insights [microsoft.com]has been part of the M365 suite well before Copilot. And here's [2]their privacy policy on it [microsoft.com]
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/insights/introduction
[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/insights/personal/overview/privacy-guide-admins#summary-of-key-points
Re: (Score:2)
if your employer is taking all that effort to analyse emails, scroll times, docs access, then there's honestly a different, bigger problem.
Panopticon in the Age of Digital Media (Score:2)
[1]Surveillance Society – Panopticon In The Age Of Digital Media (Donna Susan Mathew), Part 1 [thenewpolis.com]
“The social technologies we see in use today are fundamentally panoptical – the architecture of participation is inherently an architecture of surveillance.” – Joshua-Michéle Ross
[1] https://thenewpolis.com/2020/05/12/surveillance-society-panopticon-in-the-age-of-digital-media-donna-mathew/
AI (Score:2)
Ha, my AI Employeeware stays one-step ahead of the Bossware. I might lose the Boss Fight though, Bossware can always land a critical hit.
Orwellian (Score:1)
Dear lord, that's straight up Orwellian! There needs to be pushback. Who can work in a panopticon? That's going to give people anxiety and they will only end up getting burnt out and worn down and make more mistakes.
Re: (Score:1)
There is one called culture.ai its bonkers on what it can do. Its does it all and it does phishing test based on what you are doing currently. Which sucks when someone requests access for you and 30 secs later this damn thing send you a fake email with the notification.. ughhh got me twice
Re: (Score:2)
yeah I don't know why people put up with this shit
I started a new job recently - requested a laptop with a geforce GPU so I could finally play BG3, I leave it in the background and have a fight every now and then. Conversely I spent most of the weekend trying to diagnose Kubernetes errors.
I could definitely get paid more elsewhere but a culture of trust and respect is priceless to me. YMMV.
Of course there's nothing to worry about here (Score:2)
Of course you're doing your work properly, aren't you? (Obligatory joke.)
And not looking at Slashdot from the office! (Score:2)
Dang. My timing is off again.
Re: (Score:2)
"Who can work in a panopticon?"
Well, for one you'd have to be pretty hard to distract. No ADD folks, seeing everything means seeing all those distractingly shiny things.
Re: (Score:2)
> Who can work in a panopticon?
Prison officers?