Keystroke Logging Declared Illegal in Alberta 310
Meshach writes "The Globe and Mail has a story about how
keystroke logging has been declared illegal in Alberta Canada. The ruling applies to companies using logging as a means to track employees." From the article: " The employee, who was not named, worked as a computer technician for six months in 2004. Ms. Silver said it was a job where productivity was hard to measure. 'We thought that using an objective check through the computer would be the most fair and objective way to do that,' she said Wednesday."
Could be ok (Score:2, Funny)
I for one expect no privacy at work, because I am being paid and am using their equipment. Then again, the toilet belongs to my company, and I don't want them watching me pinch a loaf....
Re:Could be ok (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't believe it. (Score:4, Funny)
I want the job where they have no measure of your days work other than the number of times a key was pressed:
1.turn on key repeat
2.leave heavy book laying on keyboard
3.take rest of the week off and PROFIT!
Re:Could be ok (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Could be ok (Score:3, Interesting)
US centric thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
[sarcasm]Why not let the employer and police monitor everything you do? You only have something to hide if you are a criminal.[/sarcasm]
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:2)
[sarcasm]And why not simply let the government control the conduct of every business and every economic relationship?
They know what's best for all of us, afterall.[/sarcasm]
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
A government, despite having many power hungry individuals, do have at least a few people who genuinely want to help people.
A corporation's only interest is money. There is noone there who's looking out for your interests.
Of the two, the government is the far elsser evil. Of course, I'd like checks and balances on both. WHich is basicly the governemnts job- to provide checks and balances on the powerful to protect the weak.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
And there's no unintended consequences to going off after only money as a goal? Of course there are. But I'll trust someone who tries to do good over someone who doesn't care one way or the other any day of the week- they'll sometime
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:4, Insightful)
I appreciate your impression that a Corporations only interest is money. This is often true if the company is actually trying to work. When they sink into Keylogging etc they have shifted from money to "power" and the frame of reference has shifted from the company to some individual within the company.
Actually there is a common misconception that money is the objective. It works pretty well in defining the interests of simple and mid to low range economic strata function. Higher than that the whole issue shifts to power and there even money will not buy the issue. The powerful will forego money to keep power. The sad reality is that the powerful rarely consider the "common good" or other values
I wish companies operated reliably looking for money. That way we could control them quite effectively. (Mods get a life if you disagree we are discussing here)
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
A corporation's only interest is money. There is noone there who's looking out for your interests.
The idea is the get the business to serve your interests. For example, they'll make you a car or build you a house or cook you a meal if you give them some money. They're actually helping you. And they do it because that money you gave them will come back to you when you do something f
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:3, Interesting)
They're helping me because it serves their short term in
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than a corporation poison your groundwater, then conveniently go out of business before taking responsibility to clean it up (ie, the Acid pits of Glen Avon, in Riverside county california)? Or a thousand corporations collectively spewing particulates and precursors to ozone into the air that then lead to increased rates of childhood asthma (the plight of the south
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:2)
Most likely, the government gave tax money to evil (sic) corporations to build all this.
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:2)
So what happens when business runs the government, like in the USA?
Re:US centric thinking? (Score:2)
JK, in the US, businesses don't own the government, they just lease it.
Re:Could be ok (Score:4, Funny)
So, you ARE against monitoring vis a vis logging!
Re:Could be ok (Score:2)
Re:Could be ok (Score:5, Insightful)
Keystroke logging means recording your keystrokes, not simply counting them. I would say that if company policy was "your computer use may be monitored", they should be able to do so -- if you won't like this clause, you don't have to work there. Persumably this will lead to a compromise, especially if workers negotiate their contracts jointly.
As a brother post says, this is more-or-less the situation in the US, but not in Canada. There, privacy is a constitutional right which even private businesses have to respect. However, note that the ruling doesn't say that all logging is wrong -- just that in this case, there were less intrusive ways to evaluate the performance of that employee. Government regulation is another way to balance the competing concerns of the company and the individual.
bathroom logs (Score:2, Funny)
i wouldn't want to work for a company that kept logs from the bathroom either!
You're not thinking about what privacy means (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to pay for that business lunch, might you have to log into your bank account?
In the perfomance of this work-related duty, is it fair that the network admin for your company now has your bank id and password, which would allow him, if he liked, to take your life savings and those of fellow employees who did the same, then run to Aruba?
Keystroke logging records passwords. No matter how scrupulous you are about not discussing your sex life on work time, any non-work passwords must remain sacrosanct. Keystroke logging goes over the line.
Re:You're not thinking about what privacy means (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't want non-work passwords to be logged, then don't enter non-work passwords on work computers. Key-logging is perfectly acceptable. In my company we put loggers on all the computers to see what the employees are up to. I don't see how this is any
Re:You're not thinking about what privacy means (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You're not thinking about what privacy means (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, well that's a relief. I'm sure he'll think to himself "Well, I was going to take this credit card number, steal a bunch of money from him with it, break a number of laws, and bugger off to a tropical paradise, but darn it all, that would contravene my company's network policy"
We thought that using an objective check through t (Score:3, Funny)
That's all very well, but did she say it objectively? I have to know.
Re:We thought that using an objective check throug (Score:2)
>rule on whether or not the employee was
>dismissed as a result of his complaint.
>Ms. Silver confirmed the employee no longer
>works at the library but said his departure had
>nothing to do with the privacy complaint.
Riiiiight... he just found out he was being keylogged, filed a complaint, and then randomly 'stopped working' there.
Fox news... (Score:2, Insightful)
What crackhead honestly thinks keystroke logging is "fair and objective"?
monitoring (Score:5, Interesting)
There in lies the rub.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It *will* be abused and there is no ifs, ands or buts about it. CS-
Re:There in lies the rub.. (Score:2)
Let an impartial work monitoring system demonstrate who's pulling the slack.
Because that impartial monitoring system is going to remain impartial when the reports that it generates are being read by a PHB who is pissed at you because you made small talk at the water cooler with the female co-worker he is attracted to but can't ask out because she works under him. And that's just one example of corporate politics.
Re:monitoring (Score:3, Insightful)
If I write an email to my wife that says "I love you snugglywugglykins!", my employer definately doesn't need to see that. You can say "It's the employer's equipment, they have a right to do what they want," but that isn't true. Your employer, for example, can't tap your phone without your knowledge. They CAN reco
Re:monitoring (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're wasting company time and company resources writing personal emails, you deserve to be shit-canned. You don't have a 'right' to do anything with company property other than what the company decides you can do with it.
Max
Re:monitoring (Score:3, Insightful)
Only the owner gets to decide what you can and cannot do with his property. If that bothers you then perhaps you should consider moving to a country that doesn't recognize the concept of 'personal property' - like China, or in this case, apparently Canada.
Max
You should mind (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing to say "We'll read all your e-mail, and any files you save." That's reasonably "what you're doing on the company network."
On the other hand, suppose you get a phone call on your cell with fairly personal information. Your doctor's phoned you up to tell you the name of the clinic to get your AIDS treated at, for example.
It's not reasonable to say "employees shouldn't take calls like that during work," because doctor's offices run the same work hours as everyone else. So you take the call, you have to write down the name of the clinic. Ok, so you pop open notepad.exe to do it. You're going to write it down after, but the doc's talking fast enough, you don't have the writing skill to do it on paper.
You *know* it would be stupid to save this file on the company network, or e-mail it to yourself. But with a keystroke logger, even though you haven't saved it, it's recorded.
There are a hundred things like this. Who hasn't gotten a phone call from his or her boss, some extraordinarily irritating interference, and typed into his or her code "I would strangle this man if he weren't in charge of my paycheck..." then deleted it?
Finally, and most importantly, keystroke loggers intercept passwords. While it may be fine to check up on what your employees are doing at work, it is abhorrent to destroy their security on every single site they might visit.
Moreover, that information is not magically placed in the hands of "The Company." The Company is not a person. The administrator is a person, and while you as an employer may trust that administrator with corporate records, your employees have a right to have their bank account passwords kept out of that administrator's hands.
Computers are, at this point, far too much an extension of our minds to log every single keystroke. It's just too detailed, too internal. There are far too many easy ways to check employee productivity without resorting to this intimate spying.
In almost all cases, you can check employee productivity by watching out for sol.exe, checking the weblogs for things like slashdot or porn, and seeing whether the employee's work actually gets done.
The ends don't justify the means in this case. Keystroke logging is insane.
Re:You should mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:monitoring (Score:2)
>>Privacy be damned, as long as it's not abused, I welcome it.
Keep in mind that they will be collecting your passwords, credit card information, etc
The two points that you have brought up seem to conflict.
Re:monitoring (Score:4, Interesting)
My company is works the other way:
My employees work for 6 hours per day - they're paid for 8.
In exchange for having 2 hours of time to spend with family, avoid rush hour, and walk in the park, I expect no screwing around. Period.
It works! They're productive and happy at the same time. I think I'm actually getting a bargain, because they work *hard* during those six hours. They get to go home and have a life.
Odd. (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you track what programs your employees run? Can you track what websites they visit?
And does this apply to anyone who owns a computer, or just businesses with employees? Like what if you own a web kiosk in a public place, or you lend your personal computer to a friend? Can you log keystrokes from that?
Just as odd as wiretapping laws (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just as odd as wiretapping laws (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just as odd as wiretapping laws (Score:2)
Re:Just as odd as wiretapping laws (Score:2)
But a better example might be a car. You can't just drive a car you own, at least on a public road. You have to have licence, registration, insurance. Many states require a minimal level maintanence.
Guns would be another. depending on location, you might need a licence or permit, and then if you do not carry it openly, you need a concealed weapons permit.
Re:Odd. (Score:2)
Re:Odd. (Score:2)
Discrimination (Score:2, Funny)
In response, companies have switched to... (Score:5, Funny)
-Jesse
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
You laugh... (Score:2)
There's at least one vendor out there who sells software that contains essentially this functionality. It tracks what websites you visit, and how long you surf on them, by seeing whether or not IE is in the foreground, whether the mouse/keyboard are in use when it it in the foreground, etc. I imagine it would be pretty easy to monitor damn near any application this way.
The argument in its favour, so I was given, was that the proxy server couldn't tell with enough precision how LO
Six Years Ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that weird scenario has become all too commonplace, and it's just as secret as I feared. FTA, "When the employee discovered that he had been monitored, he lodged a complaint with Alberta's information and privacy commissioner."
The guy didn't even know the software was there. Now it's one thing to tell people "We're watching you. This will go on your evaluation" It's another thing entirely to do it secretly.
In the present day, clients are modeling their business practices more and more, and would like a way to track metrics. I'm all for it: if I were a businessperson or employee, I wouldn't have a problem with my boss measuring how long it took to do my work. Where I surfed during my lunch hour? Forget it. But my productivity? Sure.
Welcome To My World [whattofix.com]
Re:Six Years Ago (Score:2)
I may have misunderstood this whole issue, but I really don't see productivity being measured simply be registering keystrokes.
When they fire someone using keylogging info... (Score:2)
heartless bastards (Score:4, Funny)
Take up arms! Our nations keyboards are in jeopardy due to these evil logging tactics, soon our keystroke supply will exist only in preserved forests and small wildlife areas.
Re:heartless bastards (Score:3, Funny)
Amen brother! I, for one, will start keyboard sitting to protect this ancient keyboard from the loggers!
alsjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
Questionable results... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Questionable results... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Questionable results... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Questionable results... (Score:4, Informative)
Gotta rethink things (Score:3, Interesting)
My work day keystrock log... (Score:4, Funny)
(refresh clicked)
(refresh clicked)
(refresh clicked)
(refresh clicked)
(refresh clicked)
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(refresh clicked)
(refresh clicked)
Re:My work day keystrock log... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:My work day keystrock log... (Score:2)
CTRL
ESC
UP ARROW
UP ARROW
opera (or mozzilla or iexplore)
TAB
TAB
http://www.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
F5
EASY SOLUTION (Score:3, Interesting)
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789 http :
and save it into "test.txt". Then it's only matter of copying and pasting text. You can use the mouse if you want.
results: Shift, right, ctrl-c, right right right right... etc.
It's not that there aren't workarounds. It's just that they haven't been found yet.
Re:EASY SOLUTION (Score:3, Insightful)
They claimed to not look at the content... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you try to determine productivity by simply counting keystrokes, someone who's chatting with a bunch of friends all day on AIM looks significantly more productive than someone, say, doing work-related data entry. You almost HAVE to look at the keystrokes to see what's going on, or failing that, monitor some other aspect of the computer use in conjunction with keystrokes to best determine what apps are being used and how frequently.
Hard to measure productivity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds reasonable. Except for one thing. Why did they hire some one for this job? What problem needed to be solved? Did that problem get solved?
Presumably the problem was that not enough people were typing. So they hired some one to type, and measured the typing, right?
They should've hired some guys off of IRC. They type a lot.
No keystroke logging where I work (Score:5, Funny)
!NO CARRIER
As Ratbert says.... (Score:2, Insightful)
But to make this acutally substantive, I have a hard time imagining a job where keystroke logging, even just for counting purposes, is the ONLY way to track productivity. Productivity implies you are producing something, making progress somewhere. That has to be trackable somehow. If nothing else, make the guy account for his time in certain increments. I know that's not a great thing to do and not foolproof either, but what I'm saying is there have to b
Re:As Ratbert says.... (Score:2)
1. Carry a clipboard.
2. Walk fast. Everywhere you go.
You could be daydreaming about boning that cute blonde from accounting as you go to queue up a few more movies in your BT client but as long as you keep those legs moving all your boss thinks is "Wow there's Smith busting ass again, I wish more of my employees showed that kind of hustle!".
Right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because the amount of typing is a sure indicator of productivity.
Sorry, but about the only thing it will tell you is whether someone is spending time using email, message boards, and instant messages for personal use.
And it's poor at that, because unless they're doing A LOT of non-work related typing, you don't really know how much time they're spending doing non-work related stuff. We all type at different speeds. Maybe it's all on their lunch hour.
Besides, you can check all that stuff in other, less intrusive ways.
Objective? Please. Except in obvious cases (like data entry as another poster mentioned) this requires subjective review by its very nature.
Keylogging, but they didn't look at the logs? (Score:2)
So if they were keylogging, but weren't looking at the logs what were they looking at? Number of keystrokes? Counting keystokes isn't a great way to measure performance, because it penalizes people who are more proficient at the keyboard.
We don't know the details of the case, but it seems like the employeers said that they were using a keylogger to measure performance. This is doubtful, because there are many better ways to measure perf
Re:Keylogging, but they didn't look at the logs? (Score:2)
From An Administrator (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that if a person cannot be trusted to perform the operations (s)he was assigned to, that they have no business working in the same company as me, in the first place. Maybe I'm too trusting. I don't know. But what I do know is that I am respected by my coworkers for being fair and not letting my power go to my head.
Having said that, I wish key logging were illegal in all states. IMHO, certain people need to lighten up.
Re:From An Administrator (Score:2)
Shades of grey areas (Score:2)
But with cubicle farms being so prevalent in even small offices, you really have no ot
The Issue is Trust (Score:5, Insightful)
If you, as an employer, manager, etc, cannot trust the people below you to do the work you put before them, then why are they your employees?
When it comes to computers at work, I might need to fetch files from home, they'd log my personal passwords, and all other data; that's not only unnecessary, but unfair. I trust them to not snoop my personal data that may be transmitted through a work computer, and they trust me to get my work done.
So that would make it illegal to... (Score:2, Interesting)
It should not necessarily be illegal. (Score:2)
The employer should have the right to approach their employees and tell them up front, their work is being monitored. As long as it's done in the open, the employee can't complain about invasion of privacy. If they feel their privacy is threatened, perhaps they are not doing thei
Only government employees, right? (Score:2, Informative)
I think the submitter is wrong: I don't think this ruling has any effect on a private employer. So it's not really "illegal."
Productivity? (Score:2)
Once again managers, bosses, supervisors not giving a whole lot of thought into what their people are supposed to d
Keylogging is not objective. (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to understand that a productive worker is one who makes sure the job is done, and it doesn't matter what he or she does in their downtime. Want to measure the productivity of the tech at the library? Are the computers he is responsible for functioning properly? If yes, he is a productive worker. If it seems like he has too much free time, give him more resposibility. If he struggles with it, can him or lighten his workload.
Re:Keylogging is not objective. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are much more effective methods of monit
Re:Keylogging is not objective. (Score:4, Insightful)
That kind of attitude will all but guarantee you lose any quality employees. IT workers, like anyone else are human beings. This is not 1915, and this is not a coal mine.
I don't work in IT (anymore). But I do work on contracts for a number of organizations, many times hourly. Yes, I get downtime while I'm on the clock, and I'll use that downtime to talk with my friends on the Internet, look at webpages, or absent a computer play games on my cell phone. It usually turns out to be pretty good; being away from a particular issue for a period of time and goofing off often gives me a new perspective to approach it, and it usually pays off in the end.
About 2 1/2 years ago, I dealt with somebody like you. Seeing me in front of a computer terminal looking at CNN.com, my immediate supervisor told me to do some menial filing work. I explained to her that this is not what I do, and not why I'm here. She said that essentially she was "ordering" me to do it. I hate confrontations, so I walked out the door, went directly to her boss and told her flat out that I am here to do a particular job, which I'm doing quite well, on time and on budget. I am not a file clerk.
I didn't wait for her to try to rectify things. The job was only for a few days, and I saw no reason to get into a dispute. I left.
I had a lot of crummy, menial jobs while I was in college and grad school. Among other things, I bussed tables in a coffee shop. I did mindless data entry in front of a terminal all day. I've filed thousands upon thousands of documents. I even spent a summer pushing rocks around in a quarry. The reason I continued my education was so I wouldn't have to do that anymore. And I won't.
However, where I have seen your kind of management, where the "as long as you're on the clock you're our bitch" mentality rules supreme, was in the Army. For the most part, all this accomplishes is a "You're doing good as long as you look busy" mentality. One of the first things soldiers learn when it comes to doing drone labor is that you don't do it quickly. It doesn't matter if you do a bang-up job while buffing the floor. It can, however, get you in trouble if there's a sparkling floor you can eat off of and you've popped outside for a smoke. So, take forever to do it. Watch as your NCOs see you laboring over that floor buffer and say "He's such a hard worker!" despite the fact that you're purposely lagging.
Incidentally, I learned from a friend at the company I talked about that the particular woman I had the altercation with was sacked. Her department kept going downhill and the company received so many complaints about her from the employees they replaced her about a year after I had that experience. He told me that the employees in her department are a lot more relaxed now, and efficiency has increased dramatically.
Work should be fun. There's no law on the books that said it shouldn't. While the dot com companies failed miserably due to a lack of a solid business plan, I find it interesting that treating the employees like human beings and not worker drones compelled them to put in 80 hour work weeks without a fuss. A happy worker is a productive worker. A drone worker may be busy all the time, but he's hardly productive.
If my boss seriously asked me to rummage through the recycle bin for reusable paper, then demanded I send him an email chronicling it, I would in all honesty and sincerity tell him to go fuck himself. Life's too short to waste your life away working under a tyrant.
Now How do I find... (Score:2, Funny)
This Is Bulls**t. (Score:2, Interesting)
At a place I used to work, half the people were salesmen, who, because they went out on the road all the time, had laptops. They would change their Windows XP passwords and not tell management. They would change MANY passwords (to supplier e-co
Re:This Is Bulls**t. (Score:2)
Fair and objective? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Actual Report (Score:2, Informative)
Privacy (Score:2)
Under this paradigm, NOTHING you do in the workplace other than going to the bathroom carries a reasonable expectation of privacy, unless someone with certain powers (such as the CEO) tells you (usually in writing) that a particular communication is private.
Most courts have taken a pretty open view about what an empoloyer may do to monitor employee behavior while on the jo
Re:Aboot time. (Score:2)
What is this 'daytime' of which you speak? I know it not, in this, our Frozen Land of the North. Perchance is it related to the dreaded 'Daystar,' of which some speak in hushed tones, a scorching ball of fire hell-sent to roast our pale nerd flesh?
Re:Child labour in Alberta (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Child labour in Alberta (Score:2)
Re:Child labour in Alberta (Score:3, Interesting)
The "as young as 12" thing doesn't surprise me, for years kids that age having been working through a loophole in the system where the "parent" is hired to do a job like being a paperboy or fast food but the kid does all the work and gets the money. What happened was the parents
Re:Performance (Score:3, Insightful)
Ownership doesn't have a fucking single thing to do with it. I assume that where you work, the land is privately owned. Is the owner of that property allowed to do things to you that are against the law? No.
This ownership bullshit is such a weak argument, especially since it appears that the extention of the argument is that the government apparently shouldn't be able to create laws that dictate the way people treat folks who use their private
Re:Performance (Score:2)
Not the same argument. Owning an ATM or keylogging customers' PINs has nothing to do with this.
Ownership doesn't have a fucking single thing to do with it. I assume that where you work, the land is privately owned. Is the owner of that property allowed to do things to you that are against the law? No.
Show up to work, do your fucking job.
Re:Performance (Score:2)
There's the rub. Did he consent to the monitoring as a condition of employment? Or subsequntly? Did the Court rule that this was overreaching?
Re:Performance (Score:2)
No - because ATM users have a right to keep their personal financial information secret (or at least keep it between themselves and the bank). In this case, however, it appears that the government is asserting a right for employees to keep their actions secret from their employers while at work. That seems like a rather strange assertion. I despise analyzing situations with analogies, but this seems almost exactly akin to telling UPS that the
I see several (Score:2)
Because keystroke loggers are often invisible on the process table, they can be a "safe haven" for viruses and other malwa
Re:I see several (Score:2)