FEATURE BY REBECCA MELNYK
WATCHING THE WATCHERS Organizations across Canada have increasingly turned to surveillance technologies during the pandemic as a way to monitor their employees’ work behaviour.
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merging digital innovations, including those used to collect sensitive biometr ic information like eye movements, facial muscles and tone of voice, are under growing scrutiny as remote work models are predicted to endure. “This current entrenchment of worker surveillance is partially a consequence of cheaper and more available surveillance technology,” says Vass Bednar, executive director of the McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy and Digital Society program. She was speaking at an event, hosted by the Cybersecure Policy Exchange at Ryerson University, which released its Workplace Surveillance and Remote
Work report in October 2021. As it stands, there are few studies that examine workplace surveillance in Canada. This research builds on pre-existing findings and explores the impacts amidst COVID, revealing gaps and opportunities in the post-pandemic workplace. Joe Masoodi, senior policy analyst at the Cybersecure Policy Exchange and lead author of the report, says although AI-driven technologies could lead to bias treatment, empirical research on impacts to marginalized and vulnerable communities is significantly lacking. “There’s also little in-depth research on the cybersecurity risks posed by surveillance technologies, despite the steep increase in cyber attacks on workplaces since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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A GROWING APPETITE TO SURVEIL
Companies like Hubstaff, Sneek, Prodoscore and TransparentBusiness reported an increase in customers between 400 and 600 per cent from March to June 2020. Emerging technologies, specifically AI-driven, are ushering in new ways to surveil, track employee behaviours and measure performance. Health data is also being monitored to track compliance with COVID-19 safety measures, such as social distancing. This takes a toll on employee morale. Workers who perceive higher levels of on-the-job surveillance were found to exhibit more negative attitudes towards such measures. “And because there’s a power imbalance between employers and employees, that typically favours employers, workers may agree to surveillance measures in order to avoid potential consequences that a refusal may bring, such as retaliation or joblessness,” says Masoodi. Closely monitoring employees is nothing new. Peggy Nash, chair of the advisory committee at the Centre for Labour Management Relations, says that as technology evolves, motives among managers remain consistent: to increase control, monetize data and capitalize on the information it brings. “Technology is neutral,” she says. “It’s people who decide which technology is going to be used and how it’s going to be used. And for the most part, it is employers that decide. In many workplaces, workers have zero input, zero control.” PRIVACY PRIORITIES
There are challenges with current employee privacy protections—a key message reverberating through the report. As Bednar says, despite employment standards that dictate vacation time, sick days and the hours one works, there is no labour legislation that protects people from technologies that automate tasks and “force an unhealthy pace of work” through algorithmic manipulation.
