The email came from the boss.
We’re watching you, it told Axos Financial Inc. employees working from home. We’re capturing your keystrokes. We’re logging the websites you visit. Every 10 minutes or so, we’re taking a screen shot.
So get to work — or face the consequences.
“We have seen individuals taking unfair advantage of flexible work arrangements” by essentially taking vacations, Gregory Garrabrants, the online bank’s chief executive officer, wrote in the March 16 message reviewed by Bloomberg News. If daily tasks aren’t completed, workers “will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”
Straight-up Big Brother, perhaps, but it’s perfectly legal for businesses to keep an unblinking eye on employees as long as they disclose they’re doing it. Of course, digital surveillance has been used for years on office desktops, yet it seems a violation of privacy to a lot of workers when they’re required to have software on their computers that tracks their every move in their own homes.
Workers at various companies have complained of excesses, but many of them are new to telecommuting, with its temptations of a midday nap or the demands of children out of school. Employers justify going full Orwell by saying that monitoring curbs security breaches, which can be expensive, and helps keep the wheels of commerce turning.
With so many people working remotely because of the coronavirus, surveillance software is flying off the virtual shelves.
by Polly Mosendz and Anders Melin, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: Nick Little
[ed. See also: Bigger Brother: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (NYRB).]
We’re watching you, it told Axos Financial Inc. employees working from home. We’re capturing your keystrokes. We’re logging the websites you visit. Every 10 minutes or so, we’re taking a screen shot.
So get to work — or face the consequences.
“We have seen individuals taking unfair advantage of flexible work arrangements” by essentially taking vacations, Gregory Garrabrants, the online bank’s chief executive officer, wrote in the March 16 message reviewed by Bloomberg News. If daily tasks aren’t completed, workers “will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”Straight-up Big Brother, perhaps, but it’s perfectly legal for businesses to keep an unblinking eye on employees as long as they disclose they’re doing it. Of course, digital surveillance has been used for years on office desktops, yet it seems a violation of privacy to a lot of workers when they’re required to have software on their computers that tracks their every move in their own homes.
Workers at various companies have complained of excesses, but many of them are new to telecommuting, with its temptations of a midday nap or the demands of children out of school. Employers justify going full Orwell by saying that monitoring curbs security breaches, which can be expensive, and helps keep the wheels of commerce turning.
With so many people working remotely because of the coronavirus, surveillance software is flying off the virtual shelves.
by Polly Mosendz and Anders Melin, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: Nick Little
[ed. See also: Bigger Brother: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (NYRB).]
