tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/workplace-surveillance-24008/articlesWorkplace surveillance – The Conversation2024-03-06T13:35:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225922024-03-06T13:35:06Z2024-03-06T13:35:06ZEmotion-tracking AI on the job: Workers fear being watched – and misunderstood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579064/original/file-20240229-20-1y9mr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8333%2C8308&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How would you feel if your workplace was tracking how you feel?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/surveillance-young-female-character-royalty-free-illustration/1200880011">nadia_bormotova/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/emotional-ai/book251642">Emotion artificial intelligence</a> uses <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/emotional-ai/book251642">biological signals</a> such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. It is used in contexts both mundane, like entertainment, and high stakes, like the workplace, hiring and health care.</p>
<p>A wide range of industries <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/nemesysco-reports-increased-interest-for-its-voice-analytics-technology-for-remote-employee-wellness-monitoring-301036444.html">already use emotion AI</a>, including call centers, finance, banking, nursing and caregiving. <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/the-future-of-employee-monitoring">Over 50% of large employers in the U.S. use emotion AI</a> aiming to infer employees’ internal states, a practice that <a href="https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/emotion-detection-and-recognition-edr-market">grew during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. For example, call centers monitor what their operators say and their tone of voice.</p>
<p>Scholars have raised concerns about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930">emotion AI’s scientific validity</a> and its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445939">reliance on contested theories about emotion</a>. They have also highlighted emotion AI’s potential for <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300264630/atlas-of-ai/">invading privacy</a> and exhibiting <a href="https://theconversation.com/emotion-reading-tech-fails-the-racial-bias-test-108404">racial</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2103.11436">gender</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221109550">disability</a> bias. </p>
<p>Some employers use the technology <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3579543">as though it were flawless</a>, while some scholars seek to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2017.8025197">reduce its bias and improve its validity</a>, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3927300">discredit it altogether</a> or suggest <a href="https://www.biometricupdate.com/201912/ai-now-calls-for-ban-on-affect-recognition-as-market-expected-to-surge-to-90b-by-2024">banning emotion AI</a>, at least until more is known about its implications.</p>
<p>I study the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ju-VqbUAAAAJ">social implications of technology</a>. I believe that it is crucial to examine emotion AI’s implications for people subjected to it, such as workers – especially those marginalized by their race, gender or disability status.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Can AI actually read your emotions? Not exactly.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Workers’ concerns</h2>
<p>To understand where emotion AI use in the workplace is going, my colleague <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Karen-L-Boyd-2198141312">Karen Boyd</a> and I set out to examine <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3579528">inventors’ conceptions</a> of emotion AI in the workplace. We analyzed patent applications that proposed emotion AI technologies for the workplace. Purported benefits claimed by patent applicants included assessing and supporting employee well-being, ensuring workplace safety, increasing productivity and aiding in decision-making, such as making promotions, firing employees and assigning tasks. </p>
<p>We wondered what workers think about these technologies. Would they also perceive these benefits? For example, would workers find it beneficial for employers to provide well-being support to them?</p>
<p>My collaborators <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=8XW-v0AAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Shanley Corvite</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=B28WGTsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Kat Roemmich</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Tillie-Ilana-Rosenberg-2249183666">Tillie Ilana Rosenberg</a> and I conducted a survey partly representative of the U.S. population and partly oversampled for people of color, trans and nonbinary people and people living with mental illness. These groups may be more likely to experience harm from emotion AI. Our study had 289 participants from the representative sample and 106 participants from the oversample. We found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3579600">32% of respondents reported experiencing or expecting no benefit to them</a> from emotion AI use, whether current or anticipated, in their workplace. </p>
<p>While some workers noted potential benefits of emotion AI use in the workplace like increased well-being support and workplace safety, mirroring benefits claimed in patent applications, all also expressed concerns. They were concerned about harm to their well-being and privacy, harm to their work performance and employment status, and bias and mental health stigma against them.</p>
<p>For example, 51% of participants expressed concerns about privacy, 36% noted the potential for incorrect inferences employers would accept at face value, and 33% expressed concern that emotion AI-generated inferences could be used to make unjust employment decisions.</p>
<h2>Participants’ voices</h2>
<p>One participant who had multiple health conditions said: “The awareness that I am being analyzed would ironically have a negative effect on my mental health.” This means that despite emotion AI’s claimed goals to infer and improve workers’ well-being in the workplace, its use can lead to the opposite effect: well-being diminished due to a loss of privacy. Indeed, other work by my colleagues Roemmich, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zg29qGEAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Florian Schaub</a> and I suggests that emotion AI-induced privacy loss can span a range of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3782222">privacy harms</a>, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580950">psychological, autonomy, economic, relationship, physical and discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>On concerns that emotional surveillance could jeopardize their job, a participant with a diagnosed mental health condition said: “They could decide that I am no longer a good fit at work and fire me. Decide I’m not capable enough and not give a raise, or think I’m not working enough.”</p>
<p>Participants in the study also mentioned the potential for exacerbated power imbalances and said they were afraid of the dynamic they would have with employers if emotion AI were integrated into their workplace, pointing to how emotion AI use could potentially intensify already existing tensions in the employer-worker relationship. For instance, a respondent said: “The amount of control that employers already have over employees suggests there would be few checks on how this information would be used. Any ‘consent’ [by] employees is largely illusory in this context.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Emotion AI is just one way companies monitor employees.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Lastly, participants noted potential harms, such as emotion AI’s technical inaccuracies potentially creating false impressions about workers, and emotion AI creating and perpetuating bias and stigma against workers. In describing these concerns, participants highlighted their fear of employers relying on inaccurate and biased emotion AI systems, particularly against people of color, women and trans individuals. </p>
<p>For example, one participant said: “Who is deciding what expressions ‘look violent,’ and how can one determine people as a threat just from the look on their face? A system can read faces, sure, but not minds. I just cannot see how this could actually be anything but destructive to minorities in the workplace.”</p>
<p>Participants noted that they would either refuse to work at a place that uses emotion AI – an option not available to many – or engage in behaviors to make emotion AI read them favorably to protect their privacy. One participant said: “I would exert a massive amount of energy masking even when alone in my office, which would make me very distracted and unproductive,” pointing to how emotion AI use would impose additional emotional labor on workers.</p>
<h2>Worth the harm?</h2>
<p>These findings indicate that emotion AI exacerbates existing challenges experienced by workers in the workplace, despite proponents claiming emotion AI helps solve these problems.</p>
<p>If emotion AI does work as claimed and measures what it claims to measure, and even if issues with bias are addressed in the future, there are still harms experienced by workers, such as the additional emotional labor and loss of privacy. </p>
<p>If these technologies do not measure what they claim or they are biased, then people are at the mercy of algorithms deemed to be valid and reliable when they are not. Workers would still need to expend the effort to try to reduce the chances of being misread by the algorithm, or to engage in emotional displays that would read favorably to the algorithm. </p>
<p>Either way, these systems function as <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/panopticon">panopticon</a>-like technologies, creating privacy harms and feelings of being watched.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Work reported here was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) award 2020872 and CAREER award 2236674. </span></em></p>Loss of privacy is just the beginning. Workers are worried about biased AI and the need to perform the ‘right’ expressions and body language for the algorithms.Nazanin Andalibi, Assistant Professor of Information, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1596042021-05-06T13:40:24Z2021-05-06T13:40:24ZRemote working has led to managers spying more on staff – here are three ways to curb it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398679/original/file-20210504-23-7mnb18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Look less bored, this is your final warning.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/u3hmzw5U-SI">LinkedIn Sales Solutions</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="https://www.enhesa.com/resources/article/the-rise-of-remote-work-in-the-covid-era-and-beyond/">so many more</a> people working from home during the pandemic, employers have <a href="https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/one-in-seven-workers-say-employer-monitoring-has-increased-during-covid">stepped up</a> the extent to which <a href="https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2020/employee-monitoring-and-surveillance-the-challenges-of-digitalisation">they are</a> monitoring <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/remote-controlled-workers-digital-surveillance/">them online</a>. Not so many years ago, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/03/harvard-email-search-scandal-can-your-employer-read-your-private-messages.html">employees were</a> having to adjust to having their work emails monitored; but that seems almost quaint compared to the digital surveillance we are seeing today. </p>
<p>Employers can use <a href="https://www.business.com/articles/what-is-keystroke-logging/">specialist software</a> to track workers’ keystrokes, mouse movements and the websites they visit. They <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54289152">can take</a> screenshots of employees to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/technology/employee-monitoring-work-from-home-virus.html">check whether</a> they are at their screens and looking attentive, or even use <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2021/01/05/how-employers-use-technology-to-surveil-employees/">webcam monitoring software</a> that measures things like eye movements, facial expressions and body language. All this can be checked against a worker’s output to draw conclusions about their productivity. </p>
<p>Besides specialist software, managers can <a href="https://www.infoworld.com/article/2613609/can-a-vpn-log-really-point-to-employee-slacking-.html">view statistics</a> from their corporate private network to see who logged in and for what duration, and again cross-reference this to workers’ productivity data. In some organisations, staff who do not open work applications early in the morning could potentially be viewed as late for work or not productive enough.</p>
<p>Home-working has also raised the prospect of more informal staff monitoring. For example, if a worker would normally log in to meetings by turning on their video, but one day they are in a car or a new location, the employer might think they are not committed or focused enough. </p>
<p>This all <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1023014112461">raises questions</a> about how such surveillance is affecting people’s work practices, privacy and general wellbeing. Given that home-working <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/10/salesforce-office-in-person-work-tech">looks set</a> to extend beyond lockdown <a href="https://theconversation.com/remote-working-why-some-people-are-less-productive-at-home-than-others-new-research-160059">for many people</a>, this is clearly a moment for some serious reflection. </p>
<h2>The productivity dimension</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54289152">Managers justify</a> this kind of surveillance by claiming that it is <a href="https://www.datasociety.net/pubs/fow/WorkplaceSurveillance.pdf">good for productivity</a>. Some workers even seem to agree with this – provided the monitoring is done by a peer and not a manager. </p>
<p>Many have signed up to an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56083631">online service</a> called <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56083631">Focusmate</a>, for example, which matches anonymous strangers on “work dates” where they briefly say what they will be doing during the appointment and then they can rate one another’s approach to work at the end. The service aims to make workers more productive and to feel less lonely at work. </p>
<p>That said, home-working during the first UK lockdown in spring 2020 <a href="https://wiserd.ac.uk/publications/homeworking-uk-and-during-2020-lockdown">did not have</a> a major effect on productivity. Workplace surveillance may even have held it back, given that it appears to have increased at the same time. Certainly, there is <a href="http://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/Biel15-DuDA.html#App3">evidence that</a> such techniques can make people feel vulnerable, afraid and less creative. It can also reduce their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585311000633">job satisfaction</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54289152">lower their morale</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cartoon of two office workers, one of whom looks more productive than the other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398681/original/file-20210504-22-1i77btv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Some people are more productive at home than others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/office-workers-battery-charge-level-indicator-1344115550">Andrew Rybalko</a></span>
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<p>Also bear in mind that this surveillance is taking place in someone’s home, which may make them feel particularly vulnerable. Some people <a href="https://theconversation.com/remote-working-why-some-people-are-less-productive-at-home-than-others-new-research-160059">have struggled</a> with their mental health while working at home, and many have had to fit in other responsibilities such as caring for children and home-schooling. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>In view of all this, companies need to adopt an “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429029943/business-ethics-care-organizations-marianna-fotaki-gazi-islam-anne-antoni">ethics of care</a>” approach to their workers, meaning they make a commitment to take care of them. They need to investigate their surveillance practices and analyse how exactly line managers use them to check up on workers. </p>
<p>While carrying out such an investigation, companies should recognise that <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jil/vol38/iss2/4/">some employees might be</a> finding workplace surveillance more difficult than others. This will depend on to what extent they think it invades their privacy, and <a href="https://www.sunypress.edu/p-3659-boundaries-of-privacy.aspx">how they weigh</a> the risks and benefits of sharing their data. </p>
<p>This is likely to be affected by things like their cultural background, gender and the context in question. Those already struggling with home-working, perhaps because they have to care for children at the same time, are particularly likely to feel that this surveillance is making their lives even harder. Workers can therefore try and evade surveillance techniques – for example, by keeping an automatic mouse-moving application open to make sure they appear online all the time. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man with headphones on trying to work at home with two children bothering him" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398683/original/file-20210504-17-1ckde30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The quick and the dad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/work-home-man-works-on-laptop-1681318753">Sharomka</a></span>
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<p>Companies should be ensuring from these investigations that employees are aware of what data is collected about them and how it’s used. They should hold open discussions with workers and unions on how these monitoring practices affect workers, and allow workers to have their say without threatening disciplinary action. If workers feel that their employers care about them as individuals, they will hopefully feel empowered and trusting towards them, and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2016.1225313">less likely</a> to find workarounds or to react negatively. </p>
<p>Equally, it is important for regulators like the UK Information Commissioner to reflect on how surveillance in the workplace is changing. The <a href="https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1064/the_employment_practices_code.pdf">UK code</a> in this area broadly requires that any monitoring be fair to workers and that any adverse impacts – for example, on workers’ privacy, damage to trust, or demeaning workers – be mitigated. The rules may now need to be updated to reflect some of the latest forms of surveillance, and there is a role for researchers in looking into this as well. </p>
<p>Researchers have tended to look at workplace surveillance from the perspective of productivity where workers are viewed as resources, but we need to start thinking in terms of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951717736335">data justice</a>. This has been described as “fairness in the way people are made visible, represented and treated as a result of their production of digital data”. </p>
<p>In a world where computers and smartphones are all around us, we need to negotiate our private spaces and our control over the data we produce online. Just like this has implications in our private lives for our relationship with Facebook or Google, the increases in workplace surveillance make it just as important at work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evronia Azer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Companies are using myriad ways to check up on employees at home, from keylogger software to webcam monitoring.Evronia Azer, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Business in Society, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302752020-01-27T10:56:16Z2020-01-27T10:56:16ZCompanies target toilet breaks to improve productivity – it’s wrong and it won’t work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311652/original/file-20200123-162190-1tpur7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Don't take too long.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/toilet-sign-direction-on-wood-wall-97036877">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Productivity growth in the UK has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49971853">stalled since 2008</a>. The puzzle has become so tricky that toilet makers are getting in on the act of suggesting solutions. The company StandardToilet has designed a tilted toilet, whose seat slopes downward at a 13 degree angle. Its goal is to stop users lingering too long on the lav. After about five minutes, sitting on a tilted toilet will put a strain on users’ legs, said to be similar to a “low level squat thrust”. </p>
<p>The idea is it would <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/battle-toilet-workplace">save employers money</a> because, according to <a href="http://www.btaloos.co.uk/?p=2134">the company’s press release</a>, “extended employee breaks cost industry and commerce an estimated £4 billion per annum” in the UK.</p>
<p>An uncharitable commentator might question where the company pulled this (unsubstantiated) figure from. But a steady stream of news articles suggests that employers around the world are indeed clamping down on toilet breaks in a bid to improve productivity. A <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2014/07/15/smallbusiness/bathroom-time-penalty/index.html">Chicago-based firm hit the news</a> when a union filed a complaint against it for “bathroom harassment”. The firm, which had introduced swipe cards to monitor toilet use, advised that employees should spend no more than six minutes on the loo per day and even gave gift cards to workers who didn’t use the toilet at all during work time. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Scotland, <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/peed-call-centre-workers-slam-13851914">call centre staff were asked to sign a new contract</a> limiting toilet breaks to 1% of their shift – just two minutes for those working a four-hour part-time day. In Norway one company required female employees to <a href="https://ic.steadyhealth.com/red-bracelet-for-menstruating-employees">wear red bracelets while menstruating</a>, to show they were allowed to visit the toilet more often.</p>
<h2>Toilet talk</h2>
<p>Time away from the desk or production line may not be an employer’s only concern when it comes to toilet use. As studies on workplaces as diverse as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2338.1996.tb00763.x">Japanese-owned car firms in the UK</a> and <a href="https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/5464980">textile factories in Kenya</a> have found, toilets are also places where workers express anti-company sentiment, share advice and even covertly organise.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0023656X.2019.1624699">study of Italian factories in the post-war period</a> – an era of union suppression – found that toilets became a focal point for resistance. As one of the few places in a factory that wasn’t monitored, toilets were used as a meeting point as well as a place where anti-company feelings could be more freely expressed and union literature shared. </p>
<p>In one case, a female worker found graffiti accusing the factory boss of being an “idiot and a buffoon” inscribed on a toilet door. Perhaps scared that she would be accused of writing it, she reported the infraction to management. The door was removed and, to root out the culprit, all workers were forced to write out the phrase in front of a handwriting expert. The guilty party was found and relieved of their position – but, as researcher Ilaria Favretto points out, at least they got to see every worker in the factory repeat the insult.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311815/original/file-20200124-81357-1oiojj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toilets are one of the few places people aren’t monitored at work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cctv-system-security-warehouse-factory-chemical-310270736">By jtairat/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One thing stands out in all these examples: it’s lower paid, more precarious workers who are more likely to have their workplace activities – and toilet breaks – more tightly controlled and monitored. Writing about workplace surveillance technologies, economist Joelle Gamble points out that as employers collect more data on their workers, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/worker-surveillance-big-data/">they increase their power over them</a>. In some cases, workers’ wages are directly affected. Companies using <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/just-in-time-schedulingshiftswalmartlowwage.html">just-in-time scheduling technologies</a> have been cancelling workers’ shifts at short notice when sales are down.</p>
<h2>Critically panned</h2>
<p>But is this drive for ever more rigid control of workers’ (bowel) movements actually good for productivity? A <a href="https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/reports/2020/can-good-work-solve-the-productivity-puzzle.pdf">new collection of essays published by Carnegie Trust and the RSA think tank</a> suggests not. Instead, it makes a strong case that good quality work is the key to improving productivity, especially at the bottom end of the labour market, where job quality is poorest. Instead of trying to optimise every minute of their workforce’s time, employers might be better off improving working life.</p>
<p>Rather than punitive measures, several of the essays argue that giving workers voice and agency is crucial in increasing productivity. New workplace technologies are more likely to be successful when workers feel involved in decision making. A report by the Living Wage Foundation makes similar points. Focusing on the retail sector, it argues that <a href="https://www.livingwage.org.uk/sites/default/files/Living%20Wage%20Foundation%20-%20Good%20Jobs%20ToolKit_1_0.pdf">standardising tasks while empowering staff to use their discretion</a> is important in improving productivity and profits. This helps improve staff retention and motivation, among other benefits. </p>
<p>As colleagues’ and my own work at Nesta argues, in a knowledge-driven economy, <a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/imagination-unleashed/">the most successful firms are constantly innovating</a>. We need to spread the practices that these firms use – collaboration, decentralisation, autonomous teams – if we want a step-change in productivity.</p>
<p>So the next time someone tries to sell you a productivity-enhancing toilet, don’t just take it sitting down.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine Gabriel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tilting toilets are the latest suggestion to limit time spent on the loo at work.Madeleine Gabriel, Head of Inclusive Innovation, NestaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297342020-01-24T11:41:49Z2020-01-24T11:41:49ZBosses using tech to spy on staff is becoming the norm, so here’s a realistic way of handling it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311159/original/file-20200121-117962-8ljl32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gotcha. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/employee-monitoring-workplace-surveillance-concept-group-747181753">Lightspring</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Workplace surveillance sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but we are having to get used to it. In a sign of the times, the European Court of Human Rights <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7293ae72-a731-4379-9107-8cfcc3251608">has just ruled</a> that a supermarket in Barcelona was entitled to fire employees after catching them stealing on CCTV cameras that they didn’t know were installed. This overturned a decision by the court’s lower chamber that the cameras had breached the employees’ <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">human rights</a>. </p>
<p>Yet hidden cameras are almost quaint compared to some of the ways in which employers are now monitoring their staff. They are resorting <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/workplace-surveillance-employee-monitoring-methods-ways-face-scanning-microchips-big-data-2019-9">to everything</a> from software that digitally scans workers’ emails to smart name badges that track their whereabouts. There are even <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28560-head-tracker-knows-what-youre-doing-and-helps-you-multitask/">head scanners</a> in development that can monitor workers’ levels of concentration. According to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/workplace-surveillance-employee-monitoring-methods-ways-face-scanning-microchips-big-data-2019-9">one recent analysis</a>, around half of employers are using some form of non-traditional surveillance on staff, and the numbers are growing fast. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310661/original/file-20200117-118359-1tm0rss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Big Brother is paying you.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/laptop-computer-being-watched-office-by-290998688">Brian A Jackson</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Even tech employees are getting worried – witness Google workers <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614623/google-spying-employees-calendar-extension-surveillance-workplace-labor-law-nlra-nlrb/">recently accusing</a> their employer of building a browser extension to automatically notify managers about anyone attempting to arrange staff meetings. They claimed that it was intended to prevent staff from potentially trying to form a union. The <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/23/20929524/google-surveillance-tool-accused-employee-activism-protests-union-organizing">company denied</a> the accusations. </p>
<p>But if high-tech workplace surveillance is looking more and more unavoidable, what should we do about it? Before we go any further down this road, it’s time to weigh up the possibilities. </p>
<h2>The Man is everywhere</h2>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/i%E2%80%99ll-be-watching-you">fear</a> that technologies like wearable tech, digital cameras and artificial intelligence <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/15/the-dominos-pizza-checker-is-just-the-beginning-workplace-surveillance-is-coming-for-you">are turbocharging</a> staff <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2019/02/01/new-means-of-workplace-surveillance/">monitoring</a>. Some would probably ban such practices outright. After all, most of us want to be free to do our work as we see fit. Yet in reality, employers have always monitored how workers perform. Why ban the new technology and not all such practices? The obvious answer is that we can’t: if all forms of monitoring were banned, how would organisations even function?</p>
<p>Even just to repel the newer forms of workplace surveillance will require huge sustained pressure on politicians and corporations. This seems unlikely, particularly when the culture is already established: most of us are willing to share our lives with the world via social media and allow tech corporations to harvest the data in exchange. </p>
<p>One compromise might be to only allow workplace surveillance where workers opt in. But what would stop employers from insisting that workers sign a consent form as a requirement of the job? You could ban companies from making this mandatory, but it probably wouldn’t work. Workers would still fear that not signing would reduce their job security and cause them to miss out on promotions and other opportunities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310663/original/file-20200117-118337-wgexrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Wait till I get my hands on worker A651B’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/business-person-holding-long-paper-do-1464579962">Leremy</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>What about regulating the technology? Allowing it only to enhance employee wellbeing and not to monitor productivity, for instance. Such rules might be possible, but they will mean difficult compromises. One option would be to allow employees access to whatever information is gathered on them, for example.</p>
<p>On balance, well designed regulations and constant vigilance against abuses and workers’ rights being eroded is probably about the best we can hope for. Just as you can’t uninvent the atom bomb, you can’t easily put surveillance technology back in its box. If this sounds very stoical, it is also worth reflecting on a few possible consolations. </p>
<h2>Diamonds in the dirt?</h2>
<p>The firms that develop surveillance software <a href="https://blog.statustoday.com/so-you-care-about-employee-wellness-prove-it-44650a535762">often emphasise</a> the potential for tracking employer wellbeing. We shouldn’t dismiss this too easily. Is it possible that it could catch instances where workers are unhappy or depressed and enable an employer to react appropriately, for example? Could it even spot someone who is suicidal and help instigate a crucial intervention?</p>
<p>Equally, some uses of new technology might actually be less objectionable than existing practices. If AI is being used to monitor your facial expressions or to gauge your attitude from the tone of your voice, it might have fewer biases than a human manager. It won’t make judgements because it is feeling threatened or doesn’t like you and it certainly won’t be lecherous towards you. It might just be that workers can learn to play these things to their advantage. </p>
<p>Also, let’s not forget that the main aim of monitoring employees is to make them more productive. People might actually be willing to sign up for some form of high-tech monitoring if they knew it was likely to improve their productivity. If it showed them ways to make more money for every hour they worked, for example, that might be attractive to them. There might be an analogy here in the ways in which athletes use different monitors to improve their performance. </p>
<p>If people were made more productive in enough workplaces, it should increase national and even global economic productivity. This is what drives economic growth. It should then lead to higher pay, greater profits and more reinvestment in jobs and innovation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310662/original/file-20200117-118359-8hkjym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fitter, happier, more productive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/workplace-security-guard-watching-video-surveillance-338044973">Marharyta Pavliuk</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You might counter that these economic gains will be concentrated towards the few, trickling up rather than down. The rest of us might just feel more observed and more stressed. This is certainly a risk. But maybe it could be mitigated if the monitoring also underpinned a more progressive tax system that redistributed the gains from this technology to lower paid workers. </p>
<p>I have argued elsewhere that it would be better to tax people according to their hourly income than their annual earnings. For reasons I <a href="https://dougstaxappeal.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-is-hourly-averaging.html">explain here</a>, it would allow you to pay higher wages to lower paid workers and to put a greater share of the tax burden on higher paid workers without taking away their incentive to work harder. </p>
<p>One of the main objections to such a system is that it’s hard to check whether everyone is working the number of hours that they claim. Government access to workplace surveillance data could be used to verify this. And this takes me back to my broader point: if we can’t beat the rise of employee surveillance, we must find ways to make the best of it instead. The private sector tends to lead the way in developing and exploiting technology for profit; workplace surveillance could be harnessed to distribute economic gains more equitably.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Bamford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From wearables with monitoring chips to face scanners that assess your contentment, workplace surveillance seems to be going in one direction.Douglas Bamford, Tutor in Philosophy and Political Economy, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/716072017-01-20T11:00:16Z2017-01-20T11:00:16ZIs part of Chelsea Manning’s legacy increased surveillance?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153551/original/image-20170120-5260-o65qmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/big-brother-watching-giant-hand-magnifying-345947360">Via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The military’s most prolific <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/long-list-what-we-know-thanks-private-manning/">leaker of digital documents</a> has ushered in an age of even more increased surveillance over government workers. The legacy of Chelsea Manning’s actions is under discussion in the wake of the announcement that the former Army private will be released from military prison in May. In one of his last official acts, President Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html">commuted her sentence</a> for violations of the Espionage Act and copying and disseminating classified information. The commutation reduced her sentence from 35 years to the seven years she has already served, plus <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html">four additional months needed to effect her release</a>.</p>
<p>In 2010, Manning, then presenting as male and going by the first name Bradley, was an intelligence analyst serving in Iraq. <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/06/15/322252062/chelsea-manning-says-she-leaked-classified-info-out-love-for-country">Disillusioned by callous behavior and indiscriminate killing</a> of people in Afghanistan and Iraq by American soldiers, Manning copied and digitally released a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-wikileaks-revelations">massive trove of classified information</a>. The data included 250,000 cables from American diplomats stationed around the world, 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and logs of military incident reports, assessment files of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and war zone videos of airstrikes in Afghanistan and Iraq war in which civilians were killed.</p>
<p>Government officials immediately expressed <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/just-how-damaging-were-mannings-wikileaks/">concerns about damage to national security, international relations and military personnel</a> because of the information contained in the material. There appears to have been <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/us-official-wikileaks-rev_n_810778.html">relatively little lasting damage</a> to American diplomacy. The military revelations were more damaging, with documents discussing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks">prisoner torture</a> and an <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-truth-about-task-force-373-war-logs-cast-light-on-dirty-side-of-afghanistan-conflict-a-708559.html">assassination squad made up of American special forces operators</a>. Those enraged American citizens and the international community alike, and may have hardened the resolve of adversaries.</p>
<p>But the most lasting effect will likely be a powerful new fear of so-called “insider threats” – leaks by people like Manning, working for the U.S. and having passed security clearance background checks. In the wake of Manning’s actions, the military and intelligence communities have been ramping up digital surveillance of their own personnel to unprecedented levels, in hopes of detecting leakers before they let their information loose on the world.</p>
<h2>Embarrassing to diplomats</h2>
<p>The initial official response was that the release of <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/11/whats_a_diplomatic_cable.html">State Department cables</a> – internal communications between officials with candid assessments of international situations and even individual leaders’ personalities – would be so <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8169040/WikiLeaks-Hillary-Clinton-states-WikiLeaks-release-is-an-attack.html">debilitating to foreign relations</a> that repair would take decades.</p>
<p>In reality, the cables were <a href="https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/gates-on-leaks-wiki-and-otherwise/">more embarrassing than destructive</a>. A political uproar met the news that the U.S. and its purported ally Pakistan were working at cross-purposes: American forces were trying to fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, while Pakistan was trying to offer them protection and even weapons. But overall, it didn’t significantly increase the existing tensions in <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/26/the-art-of-u-s-pakistan-relations/">American-Pakistani relations</a>. Other foreign officials may have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/bradley-manning-leak-foreign-policy-sentencing">become more wary about sharing information</a> with Americans, but over time, new people come into key posts, the leak is forgotten and business continues as it has always done.</p>
<p>Foreign leaders about whom U.S. officials had made blunt and disparaging comments in the cables did suffer. For example, the cables revealed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-yemen-us-attack-al-qaida">secret agreement</a> in which the U.S. conducted drone strikes in Yemen while that country’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh publicly took the blame. Two years later, in 2012, a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-17177720">popular revolution ousted him</a>. A similar fate befell the Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whose lavish lifestyle – and lack of American support – was <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/special-reports/article24607888.html">discussed in the cables</a>.</p>
<h2>Revealing military misdeeds</h2>
<p>More damaging to the U.S. was what was revealed in the battlefield reports Manning released, and called evidence of American soldiers’ “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9900525/WikiLeaks-soldier-Bradley-Manning-I-wanted-to-expose-bloodlust-of-US-forces-in-Middle-East.html">bloodlust</a>.” For instance, Manning’s leaks disclosed the activities of an American assassination squad in Afghanistan. Called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/task-force-373-secret-afghanistan-taliban">Task Force 373</a>, the unit comprised specially trained U.S. personnel from elite forces such as the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force. Its goal was to assassinate a range of targets including drug barons, drug makers and al-Qaida and Taliban figures. </p>
<p>The documents also showed U.S. military personnel shooting innocent civilians on the ground and from the air – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack">among them a Reuters journalist</a>. They showed that American <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks">authorities ignored extreme torture</a> inflicted on Iraqi prisoners, including sexual abuse and physical mistreatment, such as hanging detainees upside-down. Allegations of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys">child trafficking by U.S. military contractors</a> also came to light.</p>
<h2>Surveilling the potential messenger</h2>
<p>Manning is being hailed as a <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17935-noam-chomsky-on-grittv-bradley-manning-should-be-regarded-as-a-hero">hero</a> and as a <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/314858-pence-mistake-to-commute-sentence-for-traitor-chelsea-manning">traitor</a>. There are arguments for both. The public has a right to know about official misdeeds carried out by the government and military. But those kinds of revelations can jeopardize our defense strategy and hurt our standing in the world community.</p>
<p>Manning’s leaks <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/">raised alarms across the government</a> because they came from a trusted insider. In 2011, Obama issued <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/07/executive-order-13587-structural-reforms-improve-security-classified-net">Executive Order 13587</a>, directing Executive Branch departments and agencies to <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/docs/National_Insider_Threat_Policy.pdf">be on guard against insider threats</a>.</p>
<p>National Security Agency contractor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files">Edward Snowden’s leaks of NSA documents</a> in 2013 only heightened official fears. As a result, government organizations have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/18/chelsea-manning-insider-threat-surveillance-government-employees">increased surveillance</a> and are <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/us-intelligence-officials-monitor-federal-employees-security-clearances/">closely monitoring their employees’ online activity</a>. </p>
<p>With software and techniques also <a href="http://enterprise-encryption.vormetric.com/rs/vormetric/images/CW_GlobalReport_2015_Insider_threat_Vormetric_Single_Pages_010915.pdf">in use in the private sector</a>, government agencies <a href="http://www.dss.mil/documents/isp/ISL2016-02.pdf">and contractors</a> use computer systems that <a href="https://theconversation.com/panama-papers-revelation-we-must-rethink-data-security-systems-57464">monitor when employees are accessing</a>, copying, deleting and transferring files. </p>
<p>Computers’ <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/2400017/security0/how-to-prevent-thumb-drive-security-disasters.html">external media ports are also being watched</a>, to detect an employee connecting a <a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST08-001">USB thumb drive</a> that could be used to smuggle documents out of a secure system. Workers’ keystrokes and other actions on their computers <a href="http://www.fedtechmagazine.com/article/2016/10/nsa-and-opm-turn-behavioral-analytics-combat-insider-threats">are being analyzed</a> <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/2687816/government-use-of-it/virtualization-cloud-complicate-insider-threats-for-federal-cios.html">in real time</a> to detect unauthorized activity, such as accessing restricted files or even connecting to file-sharing or social media sites.</p>
<p>Agencies and private companies with government contracts will also have to <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2016/09/01/the-morning-risk-report-defense-contractors-face-new-insider-threat-rule/">keep their employees’ after-work lives under greater surveillance</a>, looking for behavior or situations that might compromise government security. The effectiveness of these efforts is <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/special-reports/insider-threats/article24750850.html">not yet clear</a>.</p>
<h2>Leniency or mercy?</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153550/original/image-20170120-5211-1f1sgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chelsea Manning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Army</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Obama characterized Manning’s release as a <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/17/510307055/president-obama-commutes-chelsea-mannings-prison-sentence">humanitarian gesture</a> because of her personal circumstances. The day after she was sentenced, Manning revealed that <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/chelsea-manning-potent-symbol-transgender-americans-n709126">she is transgender and identifies as a woman</a>; nevertheless, she was held in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/us/chelsea-manning-sentence-obama.html">men’s military prison</a>. </p>
<p>The military was under increasing public and even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un">international pressure</a> to allow her to <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/government-chelsea-manning-were-denying-your-treatment-your-own-good">make a physical and biological transition</a> – a procedure neither the military nor any U.S. prison has <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/13/politics/chelsea-manning-gender-reassignment-surgery/">ever dealt with or paid for before</a>. (She is likely to <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/18/chelsea-manning-lose-transgender-benefits-dishonorable-discharge/96742180/">lose her military medical coverage</a> upon her release from prison, leaving her medical care in question.)</p>
<p>Despite Obama’s perspective, Manning’s release could be viewed as an act of leniency, a signal that others might escape decades of prison time if they, too, were to violate their oaths of secrecy and reveal confidential public information. But fewer might get the chance to do so, because insiders are trusted less and being watched more.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanjay Goel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Government agencies and contractors are now less trusting of their workers, and keeping a much closer eye on them, both on and off the job.Sanjay Goel, Professor of Information Technology Management, University at Albany, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/630462016-07-27T01:44:56Z2016-07-27T01:44:56ZCCTV: who can watch whom under the law?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132085/original/image-20160727-12749-1f2szkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Disturbing images such as this from the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre have shocked the nation and prompted a royal commission.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Four Corners</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past few days, CCTV footage has been at the centre of two major news stories. </p>
<p>The first, at the Northern Territory’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, showed the shocking treatment <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/child-hooded-to-mechanical-restraint-chair-in-nt-detention/7659008">meted out to juvenile detainees</a> in 2014.</p>
<p>The second came from South Australia, showing the abuse of an elderly dementia patient <a href="http://indaily.com.au/news/local/2016/07/26/hidden-camera-horror-puts-surveillance-laws-to-test/">in a nursing home</a>. A camera had been secretly (and illegally) placed by the patient’s daughter because she was suspicious of maltreatment.</p>
<p>Every day, the media, lawyers and police are handed public and private CCTV footage, along with recordings from mobile phones. These usually contain displays of grossly inappropriate and often illegal behaviour. People provide the data for any number of reasons, including to report corruption, to defend themselves or simply to embarrass malefactors. </p>
<p>These tapes can be very useful in solving serious crimes, too, such as the CCTV footage captured in September 2012 in Melbourne when <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/what-bayley-did-in-jills-final-hours-20130313-2fzvo.html">Jill Meagher was killed</a> by a man who approached her in the street late at night. The emergence of the footage (from a private shopfront), which showed Meagher walking from a bar along the street towards her home and being met by a man, known to police, at 1:40AM, was crucial to solving the case.</p>
<p>The volume of material filmed overtly and covertly grows by the day. It is so ubiquitous that people now appear frustrated when there is no footage of events that have captured public attention.</p>
<p>The vast majority of CCTV cameras are owned and monitored by private security companies, or by private householders and businesses, so we have no idea how many are in operation in Australia. We do know that there are <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/01/02/australia-has-more-phones-people">more active mobile phone accounts</a> (most of which have a recording capability) than there are people. YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and other social media brands now provide welcome platforms for the immediate worldwide distribution of recordings and images. </p>
<p>These advances bring with them opportunities for people to manage and respond effectively to crises and crime risks, and expose injustices. But they raise substantial privacy concerns.</p>
<h2>What the law says</h2>
<p>Who can film, and in what circumstances? How much of this material can then be broadcast or used as evidence in the courts? The answers are not easy to find. </p>
<p>The laws regulating filming and distributing <a href="http://legal.thomsonreuters.com.au/the-law-of-private-security-in-australia-2nd-edition/productdetail/99342">are many and varied</a>. They operate at state and federal level. They are a mixture of legislation and common law. They differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. </p>
<p>Three jurisdictions – the ACT, Queensland and Tasmania – still only mention listening devices, not cameras. Some parliaments have not addressed or even contemplated the new technologies, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/drones-finally-get-mps-talking-tougher-on-privacy-laws-29197">drones that allow filming to occur</a> from the sky – let alone the social media platforms that carry the footage.</p>
<p>Having said that, there are some questions we can answer.</p>
<p>Can people be filmed using visible CCTV and phone cameras without their permission? The answer is “yes”, where they have been warned of the presence of cameras, and even if not, if there is a demonstrable public interest in such surveillance (for example, to ensure that patrons in casino gaming rooms are not cheating, or to ensure public safety in crowded walkways). There must also be no evidence of misuse, or malicious or defamatory intent.</p>
<p>Far more problematic is covert surveillance. The common law does not prohibit such filming, but the tapes may be inadmissible as legal evidence if the person under scrutiny can prove to a court that there are public policy reasons for not allowing filming of this type.</p>
<p>Legislation, too, has been emerging in the last 20 years, but it is a dog’s breakfast.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/wa/consol_act/sda1998210/">Western Australia</a>, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/sda1999210/">Victoria</a>, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nt/num_act/sda200719o2007256/">Northern Territory</a>, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/sa/consol_act/sda2016210/">South Australia</a> and <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/sda2007210/">New South Wales</a>, covert surveillance by taping conversations or filming liaisons is now properly regulated. Typically there is a “public interest” defence, but that term is not defined and will rely on judicial interpretation as cases come before the courts.</p>
<p>Publishing and communicating a verbal recording is permitted in <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/qld/consol_act/iopa1971222/">Queensland</a>, NSW, WA and <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/act/consol_act/lda1992181/">the ACT</a> – but only if it occurs “in the course of legal proceedings”. In some legislation, there is scope for private investigators <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/tas/consol_act/lda1991181/">to use surveillance devices more broadly</a>, especially where they are acting to support police or a recognised crime fighting authority.</p>
<p>In NSW employees are protected against unwarranted workplace surveillance <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/wsa2005245/">by legislation</a>, too. It is unlawful to engage in covert surveillance unless a magistrate has given appropriate authorisation.</p>
<p>It is an offence in all jurisdictions to broadcast without permission a recording of a covertly taped conversation or publish the information from it. But the publicised cases where prosecutions have proceeded are few and far between.</p>
<p>The various offences – and numerous and contradictory defences – in each jurisdiction illustrate the awkward consequences of state and territory governments failing to pursue uniform legislation. The variety of approaches leaves the law complicated, inconsistent and thus unsatisfactory.</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>On the one hand, there is the strong sense that people indulge in a privacy-benefit trade-off, and calculate that their lives, and safety, can be enhanced by additional surveillance, whether overt or covert. This is especially true if it exposes events that demand exposure. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it may be that individuals will soon develop a greater expectation that their privacy should be better protected by law, given the potential for covert devices to become more and more intrusive and invasive.</p>
<p>Finding the appropriate legal balance between the rights of citizens to enjoy their solitude away from the prying eyes of others, and the legitimate interests that the state, its media, its corporations and private citizens might have in shining a light on their shady – if not outrageous – behaviours is a difficult one. </p>
<p>I have always been a champion of the right to privacy, but, having seen the images that have emerged in the last 48 hours, I may now rethink my position.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Sarre receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a member of the Australian Labor Party.</span></em></p>The use of surveillance cameras raises difficult issues for the law in balancing privacy with exposure that is in the public interest – and perhaps it’s time that balance was reviewed.Rick Sarre, Professor of Law, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606702016-06-16T10:03:28Z2016-06-16T10:03:28ZTracking criminals’ biodata is another step towards constant surveillance for us all<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125903/original/image-20160609-7069-1j0k5d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For some convicted criminals, punishment doesn’t end when they’re released from prison. Thanks to new electronic tags, parole officers in the US can monitor recently released prisoners 24 hours a day. These don’t just check if you have fled for Mexico, but can determine your precise movements. </p>
<p>The data harvested can be used to help prevent further crimes. Aside from making sure you observe curfews, the tags can tell if drug addicts stray into streets where they could score or track whether domestic abusers stray too close to their ex-partner’s home.</p>
<p>But modern tags such as the <a href="https://bi.com/products/exacutrack/">ExacuTrack AT</a> go way beyond monitoring movements. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/prison-without-walls/308195/">Some systems</a> can detect physiological changes such as the presence of alcohol or drugs in your blood. In the future, there may even be ways of detecting sexual arousal and gathering other forms of bio-data that may indicate probation infringement. But the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/prison-without-walls/308195/">psychological effects</a> of such constant, intrusive monitoring could arguably be seen as a kind of wearying, low-level mental torture. </p>
<p>The UK government is now planning to introduce similar tags for <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36318353">British prisoners</a> on their release. While announced alongside other prison reforms that were seen as surprisingly liberal, the move towards greater use of tagging reveals a worrying incursion into the rights of prisoners. But it could also have wider ramifications for those of us who are unlikely to get sent down.</p>
<h2>The power of HOPE</h2>
<p>The Ministry of Justice wants to follow the US model of sentencing called HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement). This was set up in 2004 as a way of reducing reoffending rates by tagging released prisoners and randomly asking them to check in with their probation officers for frequent updates. If they failed to show up, they were sent back to jail for a few days. <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/229023.pdf">The results</a> appear to have been astonishing. For example, the rate of reoffending among drug users who were tagged and released fell by 93% in comparison to an untagged test group.</p>
<p>Although electronic tagging was not initially a main element of the program, over the years electronic and now digitised tagging have become an essential part of HOPE, which is now widespread in the US. It is clear that the success of HOPE is at least partly dependant on the digital enhancement of electronic tagging and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/prison-without-walls/308195/">other innovations</a> in areas such as GPS, biometrics and geoprofiling.</p>
<p>But tagging raises all sorts of ethical questions. As well as the invasion of privacy created by the monitoring of what’s happening inside people’s bodies, there is also the touchy issue of data harvesting. There are already <a href="https://theconversation.com/wearer-be-warned-your-fitness-data-may-be-sold-or-used-against-you-31283">real concerns</a> that the data harvested by wearable fitness devices will be sold on, stolen or used for other purposes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125905/original/image-20160609-7093-18ge8g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The virtual world of fitness tracking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, the Cleveland Clinic hospital in Ohio recently used biometric data harvested from its employees to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/us-money-blog/2015/may/01/employers-tracking-health-fitbit-apple-watch-big-brother">impose large hikes</a> in their insurance premiums if it was deemed they were damaging their health through lifestyle choices. These concerns are so prevalent in the industry that recently the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, America’s top privacy regulator, reportedly said she <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/06/fitbit-ces-privacy-concerns-health-step-counter-technology">refused to wear</a> a fitness tracker because of concerns relating to possible sharing of her biometric data.</p>
<p>Data harvested from prisoners is also at risk from being misused – and the difference is they can’t refuse to wear their tags. Yet, the rise of electronic tagging comes with a warning to those outside the justice system of how their lives might come to controlled by digital bracelets in a similar way.</p>
<h2>Constant rehabilitation</h2>
<p>As the UK government’s reforms show, jails are no longer lock-ups but rehabilitation hubs. Once released, your life on the outside is perpetually monitored and observed via the virtual prison of your digital tag. As mentioned, a growing number of private companies are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/us-money-blog/2015/may/01/employers-tracking-health-fitbit-apple-watch-big-brother">issuing their employees</a> with wearable fitness trackers with a similar aim of monitoring their lifestyle to ensure they meet the firm’s healthy living standards.</p>
<p>Some employers have even tried to introduce more draconian surveillance of their staff’s biodata, for example to determine <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/us-money-blog/2015/may/01/employers-tracking-health-fitbit-apple-watch-big-brother">if they are pregnant</a>. This mirrors the situation already at play in Japan, where companies are tasked with regulating the waistlines of their employees and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/19/japan">face fines</a> if they fail to comply.</p>
<p>What prisons and some companies have in common is that they are centres of power and control. They claim to want to make you a better person, but only in return for access to your most personal data under their terms. In future, prisoners and workers alike may be stuck in a state of perpetual probation, trying their best, day after day, to live up to the expectations of their superiors. If they don’t, they face betrayal by their bracelets and the prospect of being called up to someone important to explain their biological failings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William David Watkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK government’s move to electronically track criminals on parole shows how wearable technology can become a virtual prison.William David Watkin, Professor of Contemporary Philosophy and Literature, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/531882016-01-15T10:14:39Z2016-01-15T10:14:39ZBosses’ right to snoop on staff emails is an invasion of privacy and ignores the way we work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108211/original/image-20160114-2365-1mx4gxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Blazej Lyjak</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Edward Snowden revealed the existence of <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/DS.pdf">internet surveillance</a> programmes such as XKeyScore, Prism and Tempora, there have been many discussions of <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/books/internet-and-surveillance-the-challenges-of-web-2-0-and-social-media/">digital snooping</a> and its implications for privacy, freedom and civil rights. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=divnPwm9rLo">Public discourse</a> has focused on the dangers of the emergence of a <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/920/">surveillance-industrial-complex</a>, in which secret services, global communications corporations and private security companies collaborate. </p>
<p>This focus has somewhat distracted public attention from another form of snooping that affects many of us in everyday life: employee surveillance. A <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35301148">recent ruling</a> of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has alerted us of the developments in this realm of surveillance: a Romanian engineer complained to the ECHR about his dismissal in light of his personal use of Yahoo Messenger on a company device during working hours. He had not just messaged professional contacts, but also his family. </p>
<p>The ECHR rejected the complaint that the company’s monitoring of the employee’s communications violated Article 8 of the <a href="http://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/rms/0900001680063765">European Convention on Human Rights</a>, which protects everyone’s “right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence”.</p>
<h2>Who’s watching you work?</h2>
<p>Companies’ surveillance of employees’ online communication is widespread. According <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2011/10/24/91-employers-use-social-media-screen-applicants">to a survey</a> of 300 company recruiters, 91% of British employers check job applicants’ social media profiles. Another <a href="http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/The-Latest-on-Workplace-Monitoring-and-Surveillance.aspx">poll showed</a> that in the US, 66% of employers monitor their employees’ internet browsing and about a third have fired workers for internet misuse. </p>
<p>But why is there so much <a href="http://www.matrizes.usp.br/index.php/matrizes/article/download/203/347">employee surveillance</a> today? Companies in general tend to favour the surveillance of communications of job applicants, their workplace and staff, property, consumers and competitors in order to ensure control over the production, sale and consumption of their commodities, thereby guaranteeing the accumulation of capital. Surveillance and control are <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/MarxSurveillance.pdf">inherent features</a> of capitalism.</p>
<p>The key point in the ECHR’s ruling is that there has been “no violation of Article 8 of the convention” because the court found “that it is not unreasonable for an employer to want to verify that the employees are completing their professional tasks during working hours”. </p>
<p>It is important to note that the ECHR’s judgment was taken acknowledging that the company monitored two Yahoo Messenger accounts of the dismissed employee, one used for professional and one used for private purposes. The implication is that employers are legally allowed to monitor all employee communications during working time on company-owned devices.</p>
<h2>Always on the job</h2>
<p>The ECHR’s legal judgment seems to disregard changes to working life in the digital age that do not allow us to strictly separate working and leisure time. Under the conditions of neoliberal digital capitalism, the boundaries between working and leisure time, the workplace and the home, <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/FuchsTrottierCPDP.pdf">labour and play</a>, production and consumption, and the private and the public have become <a href="http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/552/668">blurred and liquefied</a>. </p>
<p>Employees tend to also access and answer e-mails at home as well as on the way to work and back home. Many people search for job-related information on the internet out of regular working hours at home, in cafés, on the train – anywhere you care to imagine. <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/surv.pdf">Social media profiles</a> often have no clearly private or professional character because <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/books/social-media-a-critical-introduction/">social media</a> are convergence media – our online contacts and communication involve people from different social contexts, including our family life and friendship groups and involve our working life, politics, civil society engagement and the rest. </p>
<p>The general tendency is that there is a 24/7 always-on culture that benefits companies’ profits and turns ever more leisure time into labour time. </p>
<p>Given that under such conditions many employees tend to complete professional tasks out of regular working hours, it is ethically unreasonable to grant employers the legal right to monitor all employee communications on company-owned or other devices. It is also not reasonable to assume that all employees can carry around multiple privately and company-owned laptops, mobile phones and tablets that they use either for personal or professional purposes with separate private and professional social media and email accounts at clearly defined and separated times of the day in order to communicate with neatly separated groups of private and professional contacts. </p>
<h2>Need for flexibility</h2>
<p>An employee messaging a personal friend via social media on a device owned by the company he works for, using either his personal or professional ID, is taking a break from work. Given the complexity of today’s economy and the emergence of flexible working times, it is feasible to assume that employees’ breaks also need to be flexible. Company rules, regulations and legislation need to be brought up to date with these complexities. </p>
<p>The unfortunate reality seems, however, to be that many employers, legislators and judiciaries assume that large parts of the day have to be seen as labour time that employers are allowed to monitor. In my view, such surveillance practices do not merely undermine the right to privacy and the right to private and family life, but also the “<a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">right to rest and leisure</a>, including reasonable limitation of working hours”. They furthermore advance a workplace culture of suspicion, distrust and control that harms both employees and companies. </p>
<p>Adequate protection of workers’ rights in the digital age is a key political task. It can only be achieved by strengthening existing protections at the European and global level in the interest of working people, not by undermining such rights in the interest of corporations. In the digital age, labour time continues to be a strongly contested realm of human life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I received funding for conducting research on social media in the years 2010-2014 from the Austrian Science Fund FWF (see <a href="http://www.sns3.uti.at">http://www.sns3.uti.at</a>). I have furthermore been conducting Internet research funded by the European Union in the projects PACT and RESPECT (2012-2015) and netCommons (2016-2018)</span></em></p>Workplace surveillance is creating a culture of suspicion that harms employers and their staff.Christian Fuchs, Professor of Social Media, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.