Is Big Tech Pressuring Its Call-Center Workers to Install Cameras in Their Homes? (nbcnews.com) 95
NBC News reports:
Colombia-based call center workers who provide outsourced customer service to some of the nation's largest companies are being pressured to sign a contract that lets their employer install cameras in their homes to monitor work performance, an NBC News investigation has found. Six workers based in Colombia for Teleperformance, one of the world's largest call center companies, which counts Apple, Amazon and Uber among its clients, said that they are concerned about the new contract, first issued in March. The contract allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers' homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker's family members, including minors.
Teleperformance employs more than 380,000 workers globally, including 39,000 workers in Colombia. "The contract allows constant monitoring of what we are doing, but also our family," said a Bogota-based worker on the Apple account who was not authorized to speak to the news media. "I think it's really bad. We don't work in an office. I work in my bedroom. I don't want to have a camera in my bedroom." The worker said that she signed the contract, a copy of which NBC News has reviewed, because she feared losing her job. She said that she was told by her supervisor that she would be moved off the Apple account if she refused to sign the document. She said the additional surveillance technology has not yet been installed.
The concerns of the workers, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, highlight a pandemic-related trend that has alarmed privacy and labor experts: As many workers have shifted to performing their duties at home, some companies are pushing for increasing levels of digital monitoring of their staff in an effort to recreate the oversight of the office at home... "Surveillance at home has really been normalized in the context of the pandemic," said Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at the University of California, Hastings. "Companies see a lot of benefit in putting in software to do all kinds of monitoring they would have otherwise expected their human managers to do, but the reality is that it's much more intrusive than surveillance conducted by a boss."
An Uber spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that it Uber actually requested the monitoring of its workers, the article reports. Interviewed by NBC News, an Uber spokespreson "said that its customer service agents have access to private and sensitive user information, including credit card details and trip data, and that protecting that information is a priority for Uber.
"As a result, Uber requested Teleperformance to monitor staff working on its accounts to verify that only a hired employee is accessing the data; that outsourced staff weren't recording screen data on another device such as a phone; and that no unauthorized person was near the computer."
Teleperformance employs more than 380,000 workers globally, including 39,000 workers in Colombia. "The contract allows constant monitoring of what we are doing, but also our family," said a Bogota-based worker on the Apple account who was not authorized to speak to the news media. "I think it's really bad. We don't work in an office. I work in my bedroom. I don't want to have a camera in my bedroom." The worker said that she signed the contract, a copy of which NBC News has reviewed, because she feared losing her job. She said that she was told by her supervisor that she would be moved off the Apple account if she refused to sign the document. She said the additional surveillance technology has not yet been installed.
The concerns of the workers, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, highlight a pandemic-related trend that has alarmed privacy and labor experts: As many workers have shifted to performing their duties at home, some companies are pushing for increasing levels of digital monitoring of their staff in an effort to recreate the oversight of the office at home... "Surveillance at home has really been normalized in the context of the pandemic," said Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at the University of California, Hastings. "Companies see a lot of benefit in putting in software to do all kinds of monitoring they would have otherwise expected their human managers to do, but the reality is that it's much more intrusive than surveillance conducted by a boss."
An Uber spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that it Uber actually requested the monitoring of its workers, the article reports. Interviewed by NBC News, an Uber spokespreson "said that its customer service agents have access to private and sensitive user information, including credit card details and trip data, and that protecting that information is a priority for Uber.
"As a result, Uber requested Teleperformance to monitor staff working on its accounts to verify that only a hired employee is accessing the data; that outsourced staff weren't recording screen data on another device such as a phone; and that no unauthorized person was near the computer."
Re: Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:4, Interesting)
Address this.
"As a result, Uber requested Teleperformance to monitor staff working on its accounts to verify that only a hired employee is accessing the data; that outsourced staff weren't recording screen data on another device such as a phone; and that no unauthorized person was near the computer."
And while I'm here this whole situation is an argument for a completely separate home office, for a number of reasons not just this story.
Re: Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:4, Insightful)
And how will it do that?
You could have an HDMI splitter, splitting the display out to another screen or a recording device located in another room.
Plenty of such espionage is possible in an office environment too, there are literally thousands of ways an employee could exfiltrate data.
And just because someone else wasn't near the machine doesn't mean they couldn't see it - zoom lenses are a thing.
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You're really fucking boring.
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I'm not a criminal investigator, but I'm fairly certain a significant amount of crime is not committed by sophisticated criminals. I doubt any employers or clients believe these surveillance tactics would bring their risk to zero. They are likely just looking for a reduction of risk.
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Re: Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:5, Insightful)
a completely separate home office
The company in TFA is in Colombia, where the median income is $6000.
I doubt if many of these call center workers can afford a dedicated home office.
The reason Colombia is popular for call centers is the low wages combined with a standard accent spoken in the Bogota region, which is understandable in both Spain and Spanish-speaking American countries.
Colombian Spanish [wikipedia.org]
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And that's $6,000 USD per *year*, people!
Source: I'm in Colombia right now.
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sounds like they where worried about getting 6 people when they hired 1 in some kind of shady sweat shop situation.
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Anyhow, what you describe is exactly why I think this is only about lawyers and compliance.
Re:Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the boss should look at the work, instead of the people doing it. The surveillance cams are more about incompetent/insecure bosses than actual productivity. You can't even tell what a call center employee is doing from a video feed anyway. Screen caps, maybe, depending on the specifics of the job.
I worked at a dysfunctional call center a few years ago, where people had arranged elaborate ways to appear busy when the boss made the rounds for a spot check. One guy would pretend to be talking to a client on the phone, coming up with a whole one-sided conversation on the fly, with nobody actually on the line. The manager saw a headset on and a jaw flapping and was satisfied. They didn't bother to track any call metrics, or even record calls in the beginning. It wouldn't have been any use to them: They couldn't comprehend what actually happened during the calls. They had never worked on the technical issues that the calls were addressing.
They did, however, have cameras mounted to watch the after-hours employees when a supervisor couldn't be bothered to physically be there.
For completeness' sake, this is what ended up happening to the phantom talker. A co-worker realized what he was doing, and that it was increasing his own workload, and that is what finally alerted management. Of course, the guy was so-and-so's nephew who knew the owner, so instead of being fired or written up, they gave him a week off, paid, to "think about whether he wanted to work here".
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Maybe the boss should look at the work, instead of the people doing it.
I'm not defending the practice, but perhaps you should at least have read the whole summary.
You can't monitor whether someone is recording screen data or allowing unauthorized people near the computer by looking at the work.
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Unless it's an expensive 360 degree camera you're not going to know if the worker's partner is standing out of view to record it either, never mind splitters and screen sharing software. This just emphasizes to me the utter incompetence of Uber's management team.
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I know call centers are probably not bastions of sane management, but I'm still sitting here wondering why they'd need to fake that. No call's no call, fuck else do you want them to do.
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Usually there were callers waiting in line for someone to answer. Everyone around him would be on the line with someone, busy-looking, and he needed to look the same. The part I didn't understand was how inventing a ghost conversation was easier than picking up the phone and having a real one.
Probably that was down to the near managerial-level of responsibilities the grunts took there, coupled with a lack of support or training from the company. There was essentially no escalation path for your calls and ti
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Re:Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, in general people would still like some extra money, because living on unemployment in most places around the world brings a reduction in living quality that is quite severe, they just don't want to work at places where they're not paid enough to be treated as badly leading to a worse overall result than the shitty living on unemployment.
Re:Well, they are "working" from home? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're misunderstanding the issue completely.
The company (eg Uber, Apple, etc) all outsourced to a (low-quality) call center service, who in turn tries to run things as cheap as possible, which means data leaks.
When you work for an outsourced center, at the call center, the computers you touch are all recorded, the phone recordings are all recorded, and everyone who enters or leaves the building is logged. No cameras. You're supposed to shred every paper you write things down on and not take any client information outside the call center.
What actually happens:
- People piggyback access into the building when they lose their cards
- People take customer information home on paper, or their cell phones, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (eg "doing homework" to work around office closure times)
- Management has their own private office to do nothing in.
For all practical consideration, the call center environment is basically a waste of space, and all "cheap" call centers should be ridding themselves of the actual office space.
However, how do you protect customer information? Well for starters, you stop outsourcing. Data leaks because the employees of the oursourced call center do not have loyalty to your client. For all you know that "outsourced call center" has always been people working from home. They've been doing it since the late 90's after long distance carriers were separated and made competitive. Do you think people weren't doing "wrong" things with data back then? Of course they were. But the access logs have always been a thing. Every account you touch, should be logged.
So all the camera does, is add a level anxiety to the staffer working from home, that is completely unnecessary. If you don't trust the outsourcers to protect the data, then stop outsourcing. Period. What you ask for is company loyalty, and that has to be done by hiring people directly to the company, not outsourcers.
So if Apple or Uber are asking for this, then Apple or Uber should be hiring staff to work from home and providing them with company-owned hardware that maintains that security. They should not be using their home desktop/laptop, and should not be relying on the ISP for reliability. Eg, Apple would give you a "VPN" box, an iMac/MacMini with wired accessories and bluetooth/wifi turned off. All the ISP sees is the VPN box, and it's completely isolated from the staffer's own equipment.
If data is being stolen, they can figure that out without a camera.
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The relevant standards include physical access controls that can't be implemented offsite. An always-on camera is the closest you can get if people have to be offsite.
It doesn't matter to the lawyers if part of a standard isn't particular
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I'd rather find a metric that more directly represent employee productivity. And use that to determine if an employee is effective or not. If people are logging hours without doing work, then the metrics will reflect that.
If we need to watch staff, then we'll need staff to watch that staff ... and it's turtles all the way down. And monitoring people is so subjective. Trying to regulate the number of bathroom breaks or whatever is silly.
For a call center. I'd start to explore what the key performance indicat
Not USA but if in USA then I want 24/7 on clock fo (Score:2, Insightful)
Not USA but if in USA then I want 24/7 on clock for that.
Re: Monitoring Workers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Monitoring Workers (Score:2)
Re:Monitoring Workers (Score:5, Interesting)
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https://www.pcidssguide.com/pc... [pcidssguide.com]
Uber MUST comply with a number of regulations and industry standards if they don't want to get sued. That means a contracted call center MUST comply as well, or Uber MUST find someone else.
Do you want your CC info entered in by someone while their reckless-yet-clever teen is looking over their shoulder at it? Probably not.
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Keep in mind that what's really going to matter to them isn't whether or not customer PCI/PII is exfiltrated, it's whether or not their lawyers can say they took all the right steps to prevent
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Call Centers handling credit card info must have physical access controls. Visitors have to be logged. If your call center is out of compliance, you're out of compliance and exposed to serious consequences. Uber is right to demand some sort of heavy-handed stopgap, but really, the call center people need to be back in a secure office if they
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They let us know when our Airbnb guests are bringing in more people than they're paying for, which was half the reason for installing it (the other half being answering the bell when they're having trouble checking in.)
If they are not willing to walk (Score:1)
Re:If they are not willing to walk (Score:5, Interesting)
they will be forced to do what their employers want.
If you say so. Those corporations making those demands might just find them in the same situation as my local Taco Bell. It's generally not open after 9pm nowadays because they can't find anyone to work that last shift.
Can you imagine being a Taco Bell manager of a store that closes before most young people even go out for the night?
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Young people dont have much money anyway so not like they are missing out on a lot of sales.
Every location is different, obviously...but my local Taco Bell seems busiest between 9PM and 2AM when they close. Part of this is likely due to them serving the retail workers; most big box retail stores close at either 9 or 10, as do many restaurants. Taco Bell is one of the few places that are open very late (Wendy's being the other reliable location), so it's pretty common to see a drive-thru with 10 cars pending after 9.
To your point, not-having-lots-of-money is another reason Taco Bell is viable. It's
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You have to expect such bad decisions from a company that chooses for it's spokes'person' an animal that must never for any reason be allowed to eat Taco Bell.
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an animal that must never for any reason be allowed to eat Taco Bell.
I think that could be extended to pretty much all mammals and most birds, if only from the "cruelty to animals" aspect.
Modern day slavery (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is that things are getting so bad that if we actually acknowledge how bad they are we all have a mental breakdown. I hung around a lot of loser nerds back in the day and it always tell themselves that they were going to get some cert or another and then tell the boss to take this job and shove it. None of them ever did and it wouldn't have mattered if they had because by the mid-90s the certificates were pretty worthless. A lot of jobs that went overseas and a lot of jobs didn't exist anymore because software had gotten a lot better they just didn't need as many IT workers anymore. But facing that reality just too much for them.
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Some certs are hard to get and worth a lot of money though.
Unemployment in IT sector was bad first half of last year, but getting better. https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
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oops, meant to post this as 2nd link, IT job growth should continue
https://www.computerworld.com/... [computerworld.com]
So is a college degree (Score:2)
It's another trick. We tell everyone they're supposed to be able to hang with the top workers in capabilities and productivity and if they can't it's their fault and they deserve poverty.
That's how you get things like that famous scene with Bush Jr where he's talking to a women in her 60s that works 60+ hours a week at f
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We're talking about full time IT workers and college degrees are common and useful for getting in the door if nothing else, it's required. Mine has repaid itself many tens of times over and counting.
Not sure what your tale of grandma burger squisher has to do with the interday price of yo-yo's on the shanghai market but I have college degree so I don't have to do that shit and it's working great.
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A lot of jobs that went overseas and a lot of jobs didn't exist anymore because software had gotten a lot better they just didn't need as many IT workers anymore. But facing that reality just too much for them.
Oh hey Deb, you forgot your thing at the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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That's a serious word with a serious definition, not to be tossed about lightly.
If They Don't Like It They Can Starve (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh come on, this isn't news. These people have a choice. They don't HAVE to work, they are perfectly free to starve and be homeless. If you don't want cameras in your home with people watching you that you can't see, then you have a choice. I mean, it's not like they have any other way to monitor productivity. This is the only way. They need to see you. I mean, what if what if your nipples are visible through whatever your wearing? If they don't have cameras, how would they ever know? Have you ever
I have a huge problem with this (Score:3)
What is with this constant need to monitor every little thing people do? Are requests being processed in a timely manner? Are customers happy? Yes? Great, what the fuck do you need to monitor people for? I also don't buy Uber's excuse about preventing people from accessing sensitive info. This kind of monitoring won't do anything to address that specific problem and you should already have records showing who accessed what data and when that actually will help in the event someone does something they shouldn't.
If someone can complete 8 hours of work in 6, let them have the extra two hours as paid time off as a reward. Basically, as long as they're getting their work done on time, there's no need to go all cyberstalker and monitor how long they take for bowel movements.
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Ever considered that the problem is that you are an idiot?
Highlights from the UbeTube (Score:4, Informative)
An Uber spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that it Uber actually requested the monitoring of its workers...
Alone among its corporate peers, Uber comes across as an Ubermensch-wannabe: a self-centered person with a barely-repressed smirk telling a slack-jawed audience how it's done.
"Yes, we'll dismantle the livelihoods of millions globally. Yes, we'll enroll anyone with a driving license. Yes, we'll profit during shortages. Yes, we'll harass employees that complain of harassment. Yes, we'll harass drivers and customers too. Yes, we'll hire track and deceive government regulators. Yes, we'll cut the number of safety drivers in autonomous vehicles. Yes, we'll hire a felon as a safety driver. Yes, we stack rank. Yes, Yes, Yes - we requested the monitoring of workers "
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Dear God, they're based. Perhaps that is the key of success in today's economy - basedness.
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Yes, they are -- but all that basedness catches up. No escaping the past if you don't settle it
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Yes, we'll hire a felon as a safety driver.
Well, good. Unless it's a felony relevant to the job, we don't need to be barring people who sold a joint in 1990 or cheated on their taxes in 2005 from employment. Having an easily exploitable underclass banned from working any decent jobs is enabling much more abusive situations than Uber. Not a violent felony? Not a sex crime? You can drive someone around.
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Yes, I support the reintegration of felons into society, including violent ones. But this must be sensitively handled and with caution. You got someone troubled and habituated to breaking rules? (This driver was jailed for attempted armed robbery). Sure, hire them: they are human like you or me. Just make sure you supervise them properly, especially when they are in a position to harm the public.
Now here's the source of the problem - every other autonomous car startup has two safety drivers. (eg., see [theverge.com]). Ube
1984 (Score:2)
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I see all kinds of technical and employer defending replies here, but this is straight up Orwell's 1984. This should be an absolute and no compromises "No".
So what do ya do? Declare war on Columbia?
I'd boycott Uber, but I'd never use that service anyhow.
Do they? (Score:2)
"to sign a contract that lets their employer install cameras in their homes to monitor work performance, "
I hope the employer pays rent for the room, it's decoration, the furniture, computer, headphones, printer, internet, phone, heating, cooling, electricity ... so that their employees can judge their employer performance.
Do you really want this? (Score:2)
Because one thing is sure, I'll be sitting there in my dirty tighty-whities that I changed last time somewhere last week, in an un-airconditioned room so you can enjoy my 300 pound body in all its sweaty glory.
Ok, I don't weigh 300 pounds. Yet. But there are worthy goals to be reached.
You want me to suffer, I make you suffer.
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Because one thing is sure, I'll be sitting there in my dirty tighty-whities that I changed last time somewhere last week, in an un-airconditioned room so you can enjoy my 300 pound body in all its sweaty glory.
Ok, I don't weigh 300 pounds. Yet. But there are worthy goals to be reached.
You want me to suffer, I make you suffer.
Another thing that would work, at least in the USA. If an underage young lady were to show up naked on one of their cams, that would probably get that operation shut down quickly. Same for young guys, but people tend not to care as much.
There's prior experience - a school district in Eastern PA had issued laptops to all it's students, and randomly monitored the cams https://www.computerworld.com/... [computerworld.com] If an outfit monitors like that, it will happen eventually.
Way back in my day, there was a surprising
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I would think that any company with more than two neurons to rub together would stay the hell away from this. Same issue with students taking tests with camera monitoring from home. Im quite
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This. Do the companies really want this on their hands? All it will take is one enterprising guy to arrange for his wife to “accidentally” show up in the frame underdressed, and hes probably got grounds for a juicy lawsuit. And then theres the issue of underage kids winding up in the field of the camera.
I would think that any company with more than two neurons to rub together would stay the hell away from this. Same issue with students taking tests with camera monitoring from home. Im quite surprised there havent been issues like this.
Yeah - you would think. But it's been my experience that groups don't do a good risk/reward analysis. And damn, apparently they don't.
A real cynic might think that they rather enjoy the experience of collecting kids pix.
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I don't know about your country, but in mine, an underage child, even clothed, would already put them into mighty hot water.
If the kid is naked, it's pretty much a bath in lava.
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I don't know about your country, but in mine, an underage child, even clothed, would already put them into mighty hot water.
If the kid is naked, it's pretty much a bath in lava.
Not certain where you are located, but yeah. There was a local case where a guy tried to make a date with an underage girl in a chat room. After his arrest, it was found that he had pictures of girls on his computer. None were porn, they were all clothed, and not provocative either.
But it was submitted as evidence in his trial.
A Bit More To It... (Score:2)
However, there is an interesting point to consider, that clouds the waters of "this is really bad" stuff: PCI an
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When you're in your own home, there's nothing to stop you putting a camera above your desk and a microphone near your desk, out of view of the company mandated survellience equipment. Remote clear desk is easily countered.
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It's the fact the company must reasonably ensure clean desk. They have to 'prove' it to avoid liability.
Can you explain more what you mean?
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Something that does not actually work, and has no prayer of actually working, does not "reasonably ensure" anything. It's kind of the opposite of "ensure".
Sometimes you're told to ensure things either can't or in fact won't be be ensured. That can happen because the people who create the standards are stupid, or because the people who create the standards don't understand obstacles created by how things actually work, or because their understanding is out of date, or because in their hearts they believe tha
Similar to ... (Score:2)
1984 (Score:1)
And you all thought the government was going to be the one to install cameras and viewer screens in people's homes. Bahahahaha
I don't see the problem (Score:2)
[quote]"As a result, Uber requested Teleperformance to monitor staff working on its accounts to verify that only a hired employee is accessing the data; that outsourced staff weren't recording screen data on another device such as a phone; and that no unauthorized person was near the computer."[/quote]
I think that is perfectly understandable: each of those targets are critical.
I don't care what the median income is for that employee area. Move the damned computer out of the bedroom. You don't need a dedic
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... except that the cameras won't work and are basically being used as a token gesture.
Well, OK, not really "except that", because in fact what you write shows you've never lived in crowded housing and don't have enough imagination to realize why your suggestions obviously aren't possible for most of these people. But even if your suggestions were possible, the cameras still wouldn't work. Uber can claim any reason it wants; that doesn't mean that the cameras will actually achieve it.
To actually protect cus
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That's fine if you live in a three bedroom suburban home, try that in a 400 square foot one bedroom apartment that you share with a partner and possibly their offspring.
The work laptop (Score:1)
they all have webcams, and basically monitoring rats. Buy a sticker, if your brave disable the mic and hook up a hardware mutable external, and hope your boss doesn't suffer from autism.
Bound to happen, PCI vs. Working from Home. (Score:2)
Does it go both ways? (Score:2)
Since the contract permits the "company" to surveil, does that mean that employees would be able to record what their co-workers/managers say too?
Could this come back to bite the employer through ways that would have been less convenient whilst in an office. Since the new contract permits the company to record, then you as an employee can record things that could become evidence in a tribunal. In an office situation where you cannot so easily record conversations that would be hard to gather as the contract
Working from home cams, yes! (Score:2)
It is unpopular and possibly unsuitable for people that do not have a dedicated work study/room BUT it does solve a lot of problems.
The biggest problem it solves is the typical mistrust by the employer. You see there's an alarmingly amount of employers that simply believe cliche. Cliches like everyone working from home is simply watching TV, porn or sleeping on the job.
It doesn't make sense, there's plenty of ways to mitigate such situations and most people are honest but that does not stop empployers f
These asshole companies need to be brought to heel (Score:2)
You're insane if you agree to shit like this.
Already happening for health professionals (Score:2)
I know a pharmacist who approves online based fulfillment prescriptions from her home. She had to get a secure room at her house that only she can enter and has cameras on the door and her. Her own kids can't enter the room. It's to ensure HIPPA compliance. She says its a pain but understands the reason and prefers it to having to drive to work somewhere.
All that said, she makes a lot of $$ being a pharmacist vs the people in Columbia making $6k/year, so she's likely way more willing to deal with the extra