Roll Over George Orwell!
Two articles on the same subject, workplace surveillance, appeared in the June 21, 2014 New York Times. One was titled, “Unblinking Eyes Track Employees Workplace Surveillance Sees Good and Bad”1 and the other was titled, “Workplace Surveillance and the ‘Transparency Paradox’,”2 both were by Steve Lohr.
In the first article, “Unblinking Eyes Track Employees Workplace Surveillance Sees Good and Bad,” the author points out, “Advanced technological tools are beginning to make it possible to measure and monitor employees as never before, with the promise of fundamentally changing how we work—along with raising concerns about privacy and the specter of unchecked surveillance in the workplace.” The article explains how some companies are “…using sensor-rich ID badges worn by employees. These sociometric badges, equipped with two microphones, a location sensor and an accelerometer, monitor the communications behavior of individuals—tone of voice, posture and body language, as well as who spoke to whom for how long.”
In the second article, “Workplace Surveillance and the ‘Transparency Paradox’,” this “surveillance” was referred to as, “transparency, on workers’ behavior and productivity.”
Isn’t it ironic that asking corporations to open their books to public scrutiny is called “invasion of privacy,” while watching and recording every word and every move an employee makes is called “transparency?” Roll over George Orwell!