Bossware is everywhere, and it’s getting more nightmarish. As hybrid work becomes the norm after the pandemic, more and more companies have turned to increasingly intrusive technology to monitor employees, track their locations, read their documents, and even use cameras and microphones to listen in or watch staff at work.
While this kind of technology has often been used by companies like Amazon to manage warehouse staff and, allegedly, forecast when workers are thinking about unionizing, it’s finding its way into what used to be office jobs. Employee monitoring software like Veriato and CleverControl logs many facets of “productivity.” For companies, these tools promise greater control over a distributed workforce. But, privacy campaigners say, combining a growing body of worker data with the predictive abilities of AI is a recipe for disaster.
“The spying-on of workers in Amazon warehouses is at the extreme end, with employees controlled to the point of when they use the toilet or have a break—which was unthinkable a few years ago,” says Diego Naranjo, head of policy at the international advocacy group European Digital Rights. “Paranoia and lack of trust in the workforce from upper management has seemingly worsened, and it’s trickled down to remote office work now—but also the price of software has gone down and availability has gone up, so controlling workers in this way has become easier.”
The tools used to monitor employees (broadly dubbed “bossware”) are becoming increasingly subterranean and sophisticated. In June, the UK-based online résumé builder StandoutCV analyzed 50 of the most used and recognized employee monitoring tools to find what kind of data they collect and how. Compared to 2021, when it last ran the study, a quarter of tools have more invasive features. There’s been a surge in mechanisms that facilitate location tracking (increased by 45 percent), video/camera monitoring (increased 42 percent), document scanning (increased 26 percent), and attendance tracking (increased 20 percent).
The Miami-based “user behavior analytics platform” Teramind, which StandOutCV found to have most concerning and invasive selection features, provides 5,000 employers across 12 countries with detailed information on the websites, apps and files accessed, as well as viewing sent emails and instant messages. In 2018, founder and CTO Isaac Kohen explained that its capabilities enable employers to watch or listen in on their employees’ video or phone conversations in “excruciating detail,” both at home and at work. Veriato has similar features yet doesn’t claim to monitor audio, but it does track GPS location. CleverControl tracks a large range of employee activity, but not the location or document scanning offered by other tools.
When approached for comment, Kohen said that Teramind does not have nor want to have the ability to access webcams.
“One of the most prevalent modes is real-time monitoring—90 percent of these tools can track activity real time, so an employer can get a list of everything you've done that day—which files you’ve opened up, messaging platforms you’ve used and sites you’ve visited,” says Andrew Fennell, a former recruiter and director at StandOut CV, the organization which commissioned the research. “We don’t know how many employers are actually using those functions, but many tools have the capability.”
Some employees are aware that they’re being tracked—in 2021, the UK Trades Union Congress found that 60 percent of workers in Wales and England believe they had been subject to some form of surveillance and monitoring at their current or most recent job, with the monitoring of staff devices and phone calls becoming more prevalent. And three in 10 UK employees said their company uses monitoring tools, according to data gathered by the software marketplace Capterra in 2022.
There are workarounds. Some employees use low-tech options like taping a switched-on fan to a computer mouse to feign movement, or they can pick from a plethora of mouse jigglers available to purchase from regular outlets. Amazon sells over 1,000 versions, ranging from plug-and-play USB to a surface on which the mouse sits that mimics human movements. For the most part, employees don’t know they’re being monitored, and few companies willingly disclose the practice for fear of damaging employee relations and being slapped with privacy lawsuits.
The use of wearables and biometric data adds complexity for workers and for companies. Often, employers partner with tech vendors and wellness programs to gather more personal biometric and health data like sleep, movement, and fitness and stress levels. Evidence suggests a greater proportion of workers are opting in.
In 2021, 44 percent of members surveyed by PwC expressed willingness to use sensors and wearables to track productivity in ways their employers could access. In contrast, the 2014 survey found only 31 percent of respondents were willing to grant that kind of access. It’s a flourishing industry—the enterprise wearables market is expected to reach $32.4 million by the end of the year.
“The problem is the aggregation of data that companies already have, plus all the functionalities they can add,” says Naranjo. “If we allow that in the remote workplace, plus biometric mass surveillance, which is already happening in many organizations, it gives companies more and more power.” The EDR is calling for the ban of biometric mass surveillance in publicly accessible spaces, which extends to the workplace.
What does the deepening sophistication of employee monitoring systems actually mean for the workforce? At a base level, it presents a threat to job security. According to a study of 1,250 US employers by review site Digital.com, 60 percent of those with remote employees were using work monitoring software of some type, with the most common being to track web browsing and application use. And 88 percent of them said they had terminated workers after implementing monitoring software.
Throw AI into the mix and it gets more Black-Mirroresque. “The mass collection of data on workers, with the use of predictive functions, is leading to a lot of risk scoring of workers, particularly in finance, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and health,” said Wilneida Negrón, director of policy and research at Coworker, during a recent panel discussion on bossware hosted by Stanford Social Innovation Review. “Behavioral analysis is being collected and used to rank workers in everything from the potential they might unionize to the chance they might hack the IT systems.”
HR analytics tool Perceptyx, for example, uses a range of variables to decipher a vulnerability score that an employee might leave the company or unionize.
The ethics and reliability of bossware is dubious, and in terms of transparency there’s very little companies need to declare regarding mass-data collection or software with predictive elements. “In the UK, the law states that employee monitoring must be transparent—i.e., each worker needs to be told if they’re going to be using a device that can be tracked or monitored in some way,” says Fennell. “However it's probably on page 30 of a huge employment contract, and few people have signed different contracts now that they've changed to working in a hybrid or remote capacity.” Indeed, Capterra found that 24 percent of UK employees who were being monitored had not been informed of the use of employee monitoring software and their rights.
At an EU level, General Data Protection Regulation permits workplace monitoring, but only within a specific set of guidelines. Thankfully, more regulators are stepping in to provide guidance on bossware. In April, the Data Protection Commission, an Irish regulator, published employer guidance on data protection in the workplace. It acknowledged that “organizations have a legitimate interest in protecting their business, reputation, resources, and equipment” and may choose to monitor staff use of the internet, email, and telephone. However, it stressed, “the collection, use, or storage of information about workers involves the processing of personal data and, as such, data protection law applies.” It also highlighted that under the European Convention on Human Rights, individuals have a right to private life at work.
Suggestions and guidance are all very well, but as tools become more advanced, combatting the rise of workplace surveillance tech and management by way of algorithms requires more robust regulation that goes beyond GDPR, a policy put in place when bossware was in its infancy. Until the laws around surveillance are adapted for the digital age, employee surveillance is sure to be more of a feature in the remote workplace. By 2025, Gartner estimates that 70 percent of large employers will be monitoring their employees, representing a rise from the 60 percent of employers doing so in 2021.
As outlined by Mark Johnson, advocacy manager at the British civil liberties and privacy campaigning organization Big Brother Watch, “in order to protect people’s sense of autonomy, their dignity and mental well-being, it's vital that the home remains a private space and employers don’t go down the dystopian and paranoid route of constantly monitoring their employees.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
