Timecamp screenshots4/9/2023 And creating examples like people rushing or feeling bad that they can't take a bathroom break has health and safety concerns, as well. But even if this is useful for tracking broader trends, it still really erodes respect for workers. So they're just trying to understand at a more macro level, what apps are employees using? What are some of the trends we're seeing? And they think, OK, well, that makes us feel more comfortable because we're just looking at big picture patterns as opposed to, say, an individual disciplinary decision. GIVENS: So a lot of them, I think, are trying to track productivity. SIMON: What do employers want? What do they do with this information? They might have family in the background when you're taking that picture from a webcam. But also, I think about all of those workers who aren't working in a private space during the pandemic. One hopes that comes with some trust about what you're able to do. I mean, this raises big privacy questions, right? If you think about the perspective of an employee, you're being asked to do work for a company. SIMON: Forgive me - what if somebody is picking their nose? So that he wouldn't get caught away from his computer and docked pay for the time during that 10 minutes if he'd stepped away. And one of their workers gave an interview saying that he had to time his bathroom breaks. It would capture what the employee was doing at exactly that point. I remember reading one story about a company that marketed this suite of strategies to basically generate a timecard every 10 minutes. So we read and hear about tools that track every keystroke that a remote worker's making on their computer, some that take periodic screenshots of a worker's computer screen or check in on their microphone or their webcam to monitor their physical movements. And we're certainly seeing an increase of the sale of these tools during the pandemic. SIMON: We've listed a couple of things, but I wonder if you could tell us about a couple that particularly concern, even chill you. Givens, thanks so much for being with us.ĪLEXANDRA REEVE GIVENS: Thanks for having me. Alexandra Reeve Givens is president of the Center for Democracy and Technology and joins us now. If you're uncomfortable with this kind of tracking, you know, there just may not be much to do about it under the law. Companies like Teramind, InterGuard, ActivTrak, Hubstaff and TimeCamp track everything from how long it takes to respond to an email to periodically taking screenshots of your desktop. Companies are using a growing number of technologies to monitor - notice they don't say snoop on - you, their employees, during these work from home days. Do you ever feel like somebody's watching you always? May not be just your imagination.
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