WEBVTT - Workplace Surveillance 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.680 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.080 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.079 learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:25.760 production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.880 My name is Matt. Our colleague Nol is on an adventure, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.320 but will return shortly. They call me Ben. We're joined 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.800 as always with our super producer Paul Mission controled decades. 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.159 Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.519 makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.360 It's a new year. Hope everybody was able to get 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.280 some kind of vacations, some kind of holiday slash family time, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.120 and a lot of us listening now are officially returned 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:01.880 to work. A holiday season has uh sadly concluded, and 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.760 so as we speak, there are billions of people across 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.360 the planet who are firing up the old laptop, or 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.680 they're you know, putting on the uniform. They're they're starting 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:17.160 the company van, and they're off on another another episode 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:23.080 of trying to stay alive in may fortune what they 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:27.119 say in the Hunger Games and fortunate favorite the Bold, 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.720 Maybe odds be ever in your favor. Matt, you remember 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.560 that song. I always feel like someone's watching me. Somebody 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.440 was watching me. Oh yeah, I've been thinking about that 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.679 a lot as we were researching today's episode. This is 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:48.360 Orwellian and you know what, fellow conspiracy realist, after thinking 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.760 about it and after digging into this, I can't speak 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.920 for Matt or Mission control, but I do hope you're 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.960 listening to this episode at work, yes, just hopefully not 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:02.640 on your company issued device. Don't don't do that, right right? Uh? 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.480 If you? The reason this is a cool thing to 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.000 listen to while you're at work is because it gives 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.480 it a little extra punch, a little extra immediacy, right, 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.360 you know, Uh, Matt. People have heard this joke on 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.680 the show before about how stuff they don't want you 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.800 to know has ruined our search histories, and that is 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.359 that is true. But the hazard of an oddball search 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.920 history pales in comparison to what many other people have 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.519 experienced in the workplace. Especially over the past couple of years, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.920 life turned upside down across the planet. Millions and millions 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:42.600 of people found themselves let's see, battling disease, financial woes, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:47.160 mental health, social unrest, all the while still trying to 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.120 hold down a solid job for a lot of people. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.720 The world will never be the same. And this this 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:58.919 goes for employers as well as employee ease. Our episode 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.480 today is about work, it's about watching, It's about ultimately 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:09.200 who watches the Watchman. So yeah, yeah, and this I 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.000 don't know about you, man, but this, this one spooked 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.400 me out a little too. Oh, definitely, especially because of 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.200 the way work has changed for many of us, especially 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.600 the people right now making this show. Uh, we work 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.839 from home now and for to a large extent, and 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.560 we probably will for oh, I don't know the foreseeable future, 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.519 because because of the safety benefits of being all isolated 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.840 in separate places. And we're we're gonna get into it. 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.280 So let's just talk about statistics while we're sitting here 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.160 and discussing this stuff, right, Yeah, here are the facts. 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.640 If you go to the U. S. Bureau of Labor 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:52.560 and Statistics, you'll see that across about one in four 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:57.960 employed people teleworked or worked from home for pay in 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.960 some capacity. That doesn't mean they were all locked up 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.560 hermiting away. That means there were a lot of people 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:06.560 who were like, I'll go in one day a week, 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.320 or I will be gone for you know, my office 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.200 is closed for a month and we're working remotely. So 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.680 all at all, more than a third of all the 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.640 households in the US reported working from home more frequently 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.560 than they had before COVID hit. But we also found 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:31.960 some socio economic sociodemographic divides. If you are a younger worker, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.120 you're less likely to have teleworked due to the pandemic. 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:39.480 And that's where you know, we learned things like essential workers. 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.440 A lot of younger people who were maybe just getting 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.040 their first job out of high school, during high school 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.839 something like that, they started off in places like retail 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:56.039 operations or the service industry, and they had to go 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.240 into work in person because of the nature of their profession. Yeah, 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.680 and that's something that also comes into play with these statistics. 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.160 The Census Bureau found that that economic divide that we're 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.719 all seeing accelerate came into play here as well. People 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.600 who made more money tended to more easily telework than 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.880 those who made less money. So if you look at 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.640 the Census Bureau, they found that in the highest earning 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.680 households with incomes of two hundred thousand dollars or more, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:30.120 that's combined household seventy three point one. Seventy three point one, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.000 we're able to switch to telework. Again, like we're able 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.480 to switch to telework. And in contrast to that, only 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.040 twelve point seven percent of households earning under twenty five 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.000 thousand dollars a year where we're able to telework at 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.440 all because they again, like you said, then they had 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.520 to go into work for one reason or another. Yeah, exactly. No. 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.000 Let's do a thought experiment, folks. Imagine that you are 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:57.400 a manager. Imagine you're a CEO or what have you. 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.680 You have a team of people, and you have a 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.760 group of task If you have your own boss to 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.000 report to, you need to be able to tell that 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.839 person that you've knocked out these tasks or you've made 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:09.920 progress on them. And of course, if you are a 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.320 good manager, your goal is to make sure your employees 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.600 grow professionally. You want to set them up for success. 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.400 But now your whole team, your whole posse, has turned 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:26.000 their homes into isolated work cubicles. You can't walk by 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.920 like that office space guy with a cup of coffee anymore. 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.400 You have to find some other way to keep track 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.880 of what they're doing. Could you do a weekly zoom meeting. Sure, 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.760 why not? But is that enough? That's when managers and 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.479 employers started asking themselves what else can we do? And 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:50.680 this leads us to the new age of work surveillance. 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.920 And you know, I just think about this too. Um folks, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.919 If you remember the last time you got a new job, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.680 you probably had a bunch of paperwork. I know that. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.599 You know, when our overlords have changed over the years, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.240 we have to go through the rigamarole of reading all 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.160 the paperwork again. You know, codes of ethics, financial info, 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.600 insurance stuff, all the all the really juicy reads. But 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.720 in this mountain of paperwork, there's some interesting things. You 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.680 will often find tucked away somewhere in there a statement 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.080 saying something like, any activity you do on company time 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.680 with company equipment needs to be work related. Uh, and 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.840 you don't have maybe intellectual property rights, which sounds abstract, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.040 but it's really important. This applies to the idea of 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:45.440 patents and inventions. Like let's say mission control. While we're recording, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.440 he's secretly using his work machine to invent a new 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.440 kind of case. Ada. That's what. Yeah, then our bosses, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:56.600 let's say this case to do blows up. It's like 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:01.760 transformed the world's understanding of sandwiches. But our bosses, say, 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.600 came up with this while you were at work using 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:11.280 our equipment, So this case idea belongs to us, pal. 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.360 The problem is how do you improve that it occurred 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:20.080 on that computer? And when yes, yes, and that's I mean, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:24.600 obviously that's an extreme example. It's not unprecedented. Most people, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.840 most companies aren't going to go to court over case ideas. 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.920 Though for the record, I would watch a show called 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.680 case Adia Court. I think the idea has got legs. 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:39.040 But you're absolutely right, Matt, Like you're you're if you're 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:43.040 listening to this, your job, in some way, shape or form, 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.439 is monitoring you. Like, that's as old as the idea 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.880 of clocking in and clocking out on a punch card. 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.480 The issue is, especially nowadays, the process may be much 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:59.559 more robust, much more conspiratorial, and much less visible, and 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.880 you might think, and it's only going to accelerate in 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.200 the future. Before we move on, I have to ask you, Matt. 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:07.640 I want to put you on the spot. But do 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.640 you remember please? Oh good, all right, we'll put us 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.320 both on the spot. Do you remember a few months 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.600 ago we were talking about how to get under kind 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.240 of under the hood of your laptop and see what 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:25.880 other entities were contacting your machine. Well, yes, Ben, one 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:27.840 of the things you can do if you have a Mac, 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.760 you can check your activity monitor. That's a fun way 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.679 to find out if there's software running in the background 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.600 that you're unaware of that's maybe been installed without your knowledge, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.120 because you can do that with boss wear. If you're 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.600 running a Windows machine, you check your task Manager and 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.920 do the same thing. We can talk about it and 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.760 get into a little later. But if you somehow block 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.880 the monitoring that your employers have installed on your computer, um, 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.680 that's probably going to cause more problems than just if 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:00.000 you don't know work around it in some other way. Uh, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.440 but yeah, we've we found out you could do that. 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.760 There's also certain things like antivirus software that might be 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.800 on your machine that's either installed by you or your employer, 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.400 and that's a good way to monitor when things connect 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.320 to your computer, right if something physically has been plugged 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.240 in of some device, or if something virtually connects to 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.240 your machine. And a lot of these things aren't necessarily nefarious, 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:28.040 it's it's important to establish that from the get go 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.760 because it turns out a lot of them are very 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:39.040 much nefarious, insidious, dangerous. Here's where it gets crazy. So 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:44.840 companies struggled during the pandemic to maintain control and visibility 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:49.920 with an increasingly remote workforce. You used at our word 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.840 of the day just a second ago, Matt bossware. This 0:10:53.960 --> 0:11:00.280 is just like malware software hardware. Bossware is described vibes 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.839 types of software genre software, as well as an industry 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:11.920 that is built entirely upon monitoring employees, monitoring productivity, even 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.839 gamifying as Microsoft and Amazon have have done. And if 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.440 you're if you're a data nerd, there's a lot of 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.319 cool stuff you can do. You can compare things, you 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.040 can build tables, you can look at, uh, the metadata 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.240 of people's time and how they spend it. So if 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.400 you you know, if one of your employees is a 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:37.440 night owl, like someone who is regularly burning the midnight oil, 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.120 then you will know. You will see, oh, these emails 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.920 are being sent out at eight am, but they're being 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.320 scheduled at like midnight. You know that that gives you 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:53.160 a sense of what your crew is doing. And boss 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.400 wear is usually going to be on a computer, a smartphone, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.560 maybe a tablet. The important thing about it is it 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.280 has admin privileges. It can access all the info that 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.160 happens on that device. Yeah, it more or less can 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:13.480 collect anything and everything that happens. Right, And theoretically, these systems, 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:18.440 the software, and these enterprise clients, they're all about a 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:25.600 TPS BEEN that's attendance, time, productivity and security. Yes, yeah, 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.480 that's that's what it is, a t p S. This 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.439 stuff already existed in some form or another. As we said, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.120 you know, regardless of where you work, if you have 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.080 a quote unquote office job, then you probably have some 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.880 kind of I T department or some kind of subcontracted 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:49.679 I T service, and they will, for instance, probably get 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:54.320 alerts if someone accesses a not Safer work website on 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:59.280 company equipment. And I think everybody can agree that's pretty reasonable, right, 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.600 I'm with come on that. That's it's a small battle 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.120 you've had to fight a few times over the years 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.679 just because this show is not safe for work. Again, like, 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.760 I hope you're not listening on your work device, but 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:18.040 I hope you are listening at work. Yes, yes, so 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.680 so yeah, this this is something that we have run 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.360 into in the course of stuff. They don't want you 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.440 to know with you know, not not too much sort 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.920 of sound and fury from the suits, but we have 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.040 you know, we we've had to like this has happened 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.520 to Jonathan Strickland on tech stuff too. This happened to 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.040 a lot of our colleagues because you have to dive 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.720 into primary sources, and some of those primary sources are 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:48.480 in some pretty dicey places online. Uh. And that's just 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.679 the nature of our pursuit, which is somewhat distinct and 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.560 different from a lot of other jobs. But the same 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.160 rules still apply. If you have an I T department 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:04.560 that gets these alert they're probably not obsessively like going 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.559 employee by employee and reading everyone's browser history. The process 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.840 has probably automated and it gets flagged, sort of the 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:16.880 way that state level surveillance of citizens works. Uh. And 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:22.320 that is changing in the remote set up right, it 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.240 was it was much more of a flagging system before 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:31.040 employees were far far away from the manager's physical position. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.360 M hm. And this goes more extreme. Here's one that 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.680 you may have on your on your workplace gadgets that 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.960 you don't know about. It's something called a key logger, Matt. 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.120 Key loggers are scary partially because of how effective they are, 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:54.080 but I said, I think also because of how invisible 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.840 they can be and how just how much information they 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:04.160 can give out, there's a lot potential for shenanigans. Oh yeah, yeah. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.240 I imagine that someone can monitor every single key stroke 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.880 that you make. That means every website you've ever visited, 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.200 if you type it in, every password you've ever entered, 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.160 if you type it in, uh, any message that you 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.120 send to anyone with a maybe a messages app or 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.040 with a text messaging service, or even WhatsApp or anything 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.600 like that. Uh, it can get monitored. And it's way scarier. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.960 I think if this is being monitored by somebody that 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.040 you just don't know, if it's you know, your employer, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.480 maybe your direct boss or their boss, that's could stink. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:43.840 But it's not the same as if it's you know, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.880 being tracked by some other third party that you're unaware 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:53.000 of exactly. Your email can also be searched. Calls made 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.240 from company issued devices can be not just recorded, but 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.920 monitoring in real time. So there's definitely the potential for 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.400 someone to be eavesdropping, which again is something that a 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.240 lot of people have just sort of accepted as normal. 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:09.520 Like I I don't know about you. Well, I do 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:11.840 know about you. We both, for a very long time 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.200 have taken it for granted that if a camera is 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.200 not physically covered up, you should treat it as though 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.760 it is recording, sort of like a gun should always 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.800 be treated as though it is loaded. Dude, do you 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.280 remember when we were we went around the office and 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.120 in all the studios we started, Well, I I don't know. 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.440 I think you did it too, but I know I 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.960 personally applied tape to many of the studio imax and 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.440 and other machines that just have cameras installed on them, 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.520 just as a like, if you need it, you can 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.760 take the tape off. Yeah, and you were I important 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.760 in your defense. In our defense, we weren't doing like 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.960 sketchy stuff. We weren't even you know, It's not like 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:58.040 it wasn't like, oh, no, one, we're secretly selling quayludes 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.040 or something like that. We weren't even you know, in 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.920 our noses. Well, I wasn't. No, we weren't doing anything 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.040 to ferries. It's just the fact that it's what you said. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.640 It's a it's like a loaded gun that's pointed at 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.879 all times, not really obviously and you know, I'm not 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.919 trying to downplay guns or up play cameras. It's just 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.480 something we should be aware of exactly. And there are 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.760 numerous other examples of this monitoring, like some software. We'll 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:30.080 just take frequent, periodic screenshots of whatever is on your monitor. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.600 And at this point let's pause for word from our sponsors. 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.320 See who at our job is spying on us, and 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:42.000 then we'll return to dive into the deeper waters surrounding 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:53.119 workplace surveillance. Okay, we're back. Like we said, this is 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.639 kind of normalized now. This idea of being monitored at 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:00.480 work is something that the majority of employees were guardless 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:05.400 of their specific industries, have come to accept. Some employers, yes, 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.520 are much more extreme than others. Our Offit is pretty 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.200 las fair so far as we know, which is another 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.520 thing we have to bring up in today's episode. But 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.080 there are really really extreme examples, and one that you 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.800 will run into time and time again is Amazon. Oh 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:27.200 my gosh, Amazon, so many methods to track your employers 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:32.520 in so many different positions. And let's just use one 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.439 quick example here. Imagine that you drive for a living. 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:41.159 This is what you do. You're You're an Amazon delivery 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.920 person and inside the vehicle with you at all times. 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.440 At all times is a three sixty degree camera that 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.600 can see anything and everything that you do, every action, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:58.200 and it's constantly monitoring and judging you. Did you yawn 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.240 a little bit? Oh bro? Why did you do that? 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.359 Don't do that? Did you take a hand off the 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.080 wheel for a second? You didn't just touch your cell phone? 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.600 Did you like there? It really does monitor everything, and 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.359 it monitors what how much time you spend behind the wheel, 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.080 how much time you're away from that driver's seat to 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.959 deliver packages at a certain location. It's intense stuff, and 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.600 that's why you know it's I would say it's a 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.720 direct reason why you you may have heard these stories. 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:33.080 We've heard many about drivers having to urinate in the 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.399 car in order to keep their productivity rating up and 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.280 to prevent them from getting in trouble with their little 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.919 three sixty spy that lives with them. And transporting packages 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:48.320 is an incredibly difficult job. Whether it's the postal service, 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:52.000 whether it's FedEx, whether it's Amazon, people are pretty hard 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.800 on delivery drivers and it's important to remember that a 0:19:54.840 --> 0:20:00.040 lot of times drivers are being forced to go go 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.000 through certain optimized routes they are, you know, they have 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.240 a route dictated to them, and they can in some 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.440 cases be penalized if they say, well, it doesn't make 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.000 sense for me to go this way, so I'm gonna 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.439 go this other way, you know traffic, or I have 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.000 another drop that's just down the street, let me knock 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.640 that out. Well, you know, Ben, it makes a lot 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:24.000 more sense why there's been a massive uptick in videos 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.800 of delivery drivers like maybe tossing a package a little 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:29.920 bit to keep down the amount of time they're spending 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.639 in one place. That's it's crazy to think about. And 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.040 you know, it certainly doesn't excuse destroying the contents of 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:37.840 a package by throwing it or something. But you could 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:43.000 totally see why what happened. Yeah, absolutely can. And the 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.960 companies that are selling this tracking software, they're making it killing. 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.560 Don't worry about them. They're they're doing fine, we assure you. 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.440 But there's a lot of criticism coming out, and many 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.960 critics are increasingly concerned about what happens when your office 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.960 becomes your home and your company's little version of Big 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.440 Brother becomes in a very real way, like a nosy 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:10.920 roommate that's hovering over your shoulder. Like, for instance, Matt, 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:15.440 you are you are recording in your house, in your office. 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.479 I'm recording in a room in my place that I 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:23.119 just converted into an office. You know, this is just 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.520 a room that I converted into an office as well. Yes, yes, yes, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.639 we just we're working in conversion rooms, I guess. But 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:35.600 our personal lives also occur in these rooms, you know. 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:41.359 And the question then becomes a question about thresholds, boundaries, 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:46.040 and comfort levels. How much should your employer be able 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.160 to know about your personal life? Uh? Found a great 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.119 quote by an outfit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation the 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.240 e f F. We've talked about them on the show before, 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.159 and I like how they put this. They put it 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:05.320 pretty succinctly when they talk about when when they introduce 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:09.479 the concept of bosswear, and when they talk about how 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.119 these tools are sold to employers and how they can 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:18.400 affect employees. And they say, some vendors build their tools 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:23.280 as automatic time tracking or workplace analytics software. Others market 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.240 to companies concerned about data breaches or intellectual property theft. 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:32.480 We'll call these tools collectively bosswear. Hey, here's the term there. 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.399 It is the e f F is using it. So 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.480 I think we were totally fine and using bosswear. Yeah, 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.960 let's continue with the quote. While aimed at helping employers, 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.640 boss ware puts workers privacy and security at risk by 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:50.480 logging every click and key stroke, covertly gathering information for lawsuits, 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.600 and using other spying features that go far beyond what 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:58.280 is necessary and proportionate to manage a workforce. Yeah, so 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:03.200 their their idea is that this is overkilled basically, That's 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:05.359 that's kind of the crux of their argument. And yeah, 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.240 it's clear that the e f F has a horse 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.040 in this race. They have an opinion, they have a 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.359 badger in the bag because again, they're a nonprofit that 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.240 is intensely focused on worrying about privacy and the digital sphere. 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:20.840 That is their job, right, So it's not hard to 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:23.439 see why they have all people would think this is 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.360 a bad thing. Remotely controlling a laptop camera in an office, 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:31.480 that's one thing. But then imagine you have a camera 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:35.560 that turns on without your consent in your own bedroom, 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:40.960 like after work hours. You know, now it's like nine thirty, 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:45.240 you're kicking it, you know, on the bed, uh, next 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:47.520 to your desk or something. I don't know, you're watching 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:51.480 always sunning in Philadelphia, or you're you're knitting because that's 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:53.879 your new hobby during the pandemic for some reason. In 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:58.959 this scenario, and all of a sudden, you notice that 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:03.160 little little red light on your camera whatever your devices 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:05.680 has popped on and you don't know how long it's 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.360 been on, and you don't know why it's on. You 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:10.960 can go and shut it off yourself or cover it, 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.359 but now you know someone else can drive your car 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.879 as it were. Add to this the even more black 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:22.200 mirrorsque part of this. I believe there's functionality in some 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:25.240 devices to have the camera on without seeming as though 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:30.080 it is on. But just in in many of these 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:34.680 software's defense, it is only used on company time, right, 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:37.919 So if there's a certain number of work hours you're 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:40.119 supposed to keep in a week, and those work hours 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:43.639 are between a certain time, then generally it could or 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:46.720 would be active and then would be inactive, and other 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:49.800 times that isn't always the case. And you know, there's 0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:52.479 so many variables that go into that. This is a 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:56.000 real scenario that could happen. Yeah, yeah, And at this 0:24:56.040 --> 0:24:58.560 point there might be some folks in the audience who 0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:00.840 some of us are thinking, well, well, this is kind 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.600 of are we being a sensationalistic or guys, calm down, 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:08.959 it's the Internet. Privacy doesn't exist anymore. But before we 0:25:09.000 --> 0:25:11.800 ask if this is alarmist, let's look at some of 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:16.440 those general categories of monitoring. What we have just talked 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:20.760 about is the most common type of surveillance activity monitoring. 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:24.760 It's a log of which apps you use, which websites 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:28.280 you visit. It could include stuff like who you email 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:33.000 and when, including the subject line metadata. It could also 0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:37.120 include posts you make on social media on your work computer, tablet, 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:41.679