Your Boss Wants You Back in the Office. This Surveillance Tech Could Be Waiting for You
1 min read
Summary
More US companies are turning to employee monitoring software to track their staff’s productivity and ensure they are adhering to return-to-office policies.
Such software can range from simple time-tracking apps to location-tracking devices that log when employees arrive and leave the building, and which rooms they use while there.
Approximately 70 to 80 percent of large US employers are thought to utilize some form of employee monitoring, and unions are beginning to push back on the practice.
Worker surveillance is becoming particularly prevalent in knowledge industries, where the nature of the work makes it difficult to track, and where its implementation may do more harm than good.
Unions and workers’ privacy rights may provide the only protection from some of the more intrusive monitoring software, though these protections are few and far between in the US.
This comes as new reporting from WIRED reveals the extent to which employees at 13 federal agencies are being monitored and censored by tech built and installed by Elon Musk’s DOGE team.
