Big Brother Watching Your Every Move...
Re: Buckley, Russell, The Death Knell of Privacy. The Mobile Technology Weblog, May 25, 2005
According to the above article the mobile technology industry has now created a new method to increase efficiency and production at the workplace - by tracking your every move! Whether you are in the restroom or going outside for a smoke, your manager will always know where you are - thanks to the Sprint Business Mobility Framework, which is a service that tracks employees' movements. It sends out alerts to management when they stray outside the designated Geofence and reports a "breadcrumb" trail of where they have been. Finally, it can tell managers which employee is nearest to a given point in the event of a service need - think the nearest taxi or plumber.
I agree with Buckley that is type of management is horrendous. Employees must feel freedom in their workplace and management needs to have confidence that their employees are doing their jobs. Just like tagging a cow with an electronic device so it doesn't wander off the farm, employers will be doing the same to humans - let me reiterate, HUMANS! It is already bad enough that at some major corporations you have to literally "clock in" and out every day. I seriously hope that this trend stops because I know that I would never work for such an establishment.
Should your management track every move you make while on the job? Do you want big brother watching your every move?
3 Comments:
Employers have long been able to monitor telephone and Internet usage for office-based employees. It wasn't long before they found ways to manage those whose work was out in the real world. Though with GPS and other devices already on the market, there is probably a company out there that was already taking the Big Brother approach to personnel management.
I definitely agree! I would not want my employer tracking my every move on the job. I especially liked your analogy of tagging cows. It shows how ridculous the idea actually is.
In a previous position, the motto of the company was "it's our computer, it's our $$ paying you to use it, we can monitor you and your activities as we see fit. A very scary thought indeed.
I still play Solitaire from time to time, though.
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