Workers Are Increasingly Under Surveillance: The Corporations That Are Watching

Many workers now operate under a watchful, scrutinizing eye. That’s because the ubiquity of surveillance technology in the workplace often “undermines worker power” and “allows firms to further surveil and exploit workers,” according to a new report by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth think tank. 

What Happened: Supposedly meant to increase worker productivity and cut costs, added surveillance contributes to algorithmic management practices, enabling “unpredictable scheduling, split shifts, or narrow definitions of ‘work time’ within a shift.”

The report finds the result is frequently a loss of jobs and injurious consequences to worker health and safety. 

Worker surveillance technology has been around for a long time, but its usage expanded particularly during the pandemic to help companies track employees while working from home, Recode reports.

Who’s Doing The Surveilling? It’s larger companies that are doing most of the surveilling. Nontraditional employee management tools, like surveillance, are used by more than half of the 239 corporations surveyed by Gartner, a research and advisory firm. 

Amazon AMZN has implemented new artificial intelligent cameras to track drivers’ location, movement and biometric data, according to Vice.

In March, five Democratic Senators questioned an Amazon spokesperson for the company’s role in surveilling its workers. The representatives were concerned about potential violation of drivers’ privacy rights among other concerns. 

Zoom ZM was used during the pandemic to track the attention of workers until the company got so much criticism that it removed the feature. 

Uber UBER and Lyft LYFT drivers have complained about being tracked by algorithms and report being punished if they cancel a bunch of rides in a row, essentially being “shadow turned” off by the company, according to Vox reporting. A Lyft spokesperson told Vox that drivers choose to work for the company because of the flexibility it gives them, and noted that most Lyft drivers have other jobs. 

In 2016, an ex-Uber manager reported to prosecutors that there were potential illegal surveillance tactics being conducted by the company, per Fortune reporting. 

The Washington Center report advocates for new federal policies to ensure worker protection and to expand the privacy rights of workers. 

Photo: Lianhao Qu via Unsplash.