Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Workplace Surveillance is Sparking a Cyber Rebellion

GPS jammers in vans, FitBits strapped to dogs — employees are fighting back.

...Worksnaps is a piece of software that takes regular screenshots of a worker’s computer screen (with their full knowledge), counts their mouse and keyboard clicks each minute, and even offers the option of capturing webcam images. The customer testimonials are worth reading. One small business owner enthuses that she was able to “find and weed out” workers who were chatting on Facebook even though she was in the US and they were in the Philippines...

There are the drivers who plug cheap GPS jammers from China into the cigarette lighter slots in their vans to confuse their companies’ tracking systems. Or the workers who strap their employer-provided Fitbits on to their dogs to boost their “activity levels” for the day. Remember the business owner who used Worksnaps to monitor her workers in the Philippines? She found they were using programs to fool the software into thinking they were working. Worksnaps had to design a tool to identify the cheaters. more