Do not use your work computer for anything but work. Do not use your work online accounts for anything personal. Treat them like the spying device they are. 9/10 the company doesn’t have the resources to actually spy on you, but it can all be changed with a single software update
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
21 points (88.9% liked)
Hacker News
4122 readers
2 users here now
This community serves to share top posts on Hacker News with the wider fediverse.
Rules
0. Keep it legal
- Keep it civil and SFW
- Keep it safe for members of marginalised groups
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I was at a professional development conference offered by my union yesterday. 3/4 of the presenters I went to were using their management-owned accounts (and in one case, a management-owned device!). Now, none of the topics were about unionism--it was all how to be better at our jobs, but I couldn't wrap my head around it... and they put up QR codes for us to access on our phones, and guess what? The links wouldn't work for me because I refuse to put any work shit on my personal phone, so I wasn't logged into my work account, and therefore didn't have permission to view the document. I just could not believe that people were surprised...
Oh they do. All your activity is being logged. They just don't have the reason to view those logs until you give them one.
Ummm, monitoring badge accesses and Internet usage has been standard practice at basically all companies since the dawn of time. Calling it spying is hilarious.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As the company escalates its RTO push, Amazon has started tracking and sharing individual office attendance records, Insider's Eugene Kim reported Thursday.
"This tool gives employees and managers visibility into the days they badged into a corporate building," Amazon spokesperson Rob Munoz previously told Insider in an email.
JPMorgan has done the same, using swipe data to generate special reports and dashboards that managers then use to enforce in-office quotas, including via calls and emails from senior leaders to staffers who aren't complying.
For example, if your team is meant to be in 3 days a week, this number should equal 60%," one leaked intranet post said, noting that the records are accessible to managing and executive directors.
The system can see everything from how long employees spend on Zoom calls, emails, and spreadsheets, to when they reserve seats in the office, Insider's Reed Alexander reported last year.
Australian firm XY Sense sells sensors that can be mounted onto ceilings to scan an office floor and identify heavily trafficked or underused areas, in theory to better allocate space.
The original article contains 715 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Companies watching employees? You don’t say.