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The accounting firm insists the technology is to meet compliance regulations as the financial world adjusts to home life.
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Meanwhile, PwC has developed facial recognition software that can log employees’ absences from their computer screens – including for bathroom breaks. The technology, provided by Sapience, recorded workers’ activity and warned them for spending too long on breaks, rather than being “in the zone”. In February, when office life still existed, Barclays was forced to scrap new tracking software following a staff backlash. However, there’s a limit to how much people will submit to Big Brother’s gaze. There’s a tacit understanding in finance that everything you do will be tracked.” “I imagine my logins are recorded on my terminal – I need to be at my desk ready to trade all day. “I’m so used to being watched, I’ve almost forgotten about it,” explains one City trader. It’s a more accepted practice in the corporate world: from brokers handling highly sensitive data, to lawyers self-reporting billable hours via time-tracking software. We organise work drinks on it, but you have to assume that everything is being read.”Īccording to the Information Commissioner’s Office, employers must tell employees if they’re being monitored and why. It feels like it was purpose-made so every communication and email can be instantly monitored. “We have an instant messenger that doesn't work that well and can’t be uninstalled. To see if you’re at your desk, they just have to count your timeouts: clever.” The solution? “I use one of those programs which creates fake mouse movements.” But the monitoring doesn’t end there. “They set the screensaver timeout to the smallest setting – ten minutes – and make it impossible to change. “We argue that we need a new collective psychological contract between employer and employee that spells out behaviours and values, which are so different now.”ĭavid’s current role is in a similar institution to Barclays. Does it need regulating? “We’re in a live national working experiment," says Adrian Wakeling of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. In the current employer-employee game of cat-and-mouse, tracking software chases after nimble-minded workers who seek help on Reddit, flock to ever-evolving anti-surveillance programs and dodge invasive scrutiny. “But there was a further spike in interest once I emailed users that we’d adapted to the changes.” “I believe my site caused the policy changes,” says developer Wesley Henshall. “If you have a hefty enough PC, you can work in one window and game in another without them ever knowing,” explains the programmer.Īnti-surveillance software is experiencing a boom, too: Presence Scheduler, which can set your Slack status as permanently active, doubled in sales and traffic in the first two months of lockdown – until Slack clamped down and closed the coding loophole. That means they can ring-fence offending programs – and their work – from the rest of their computer. With surveillance software hard to evade (employers will likely notice if it’s been switched off), the tech-minded are downloading virtual machines. Methods of avoiding employers’ prying eyes range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Can they detect when I haven’t touched the laptop for an hour? Possibly. “Right next to it is my own computer for all my personal stuff. “My employer sent me a laptop running with all their corporate spyware on it,” says one Florida-based programmer. But some remote workers are fighting back against the tide of company scrutiny.