WEBVTT - Warehouses Watching Every Move Workers Make 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.680 Jack Wesley works in a warehouse in eastern Pennsylvania, and 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:07.080 his job involves a lot of bending, lifting, twisting, and reaching. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:12.760 Every day. Done wrong, all this repetitive motion can lead 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.880 to variety of back injuries that are all too common 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.160 for his profession. So when his boss has recently asked 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.720 him to try out this new piece of technology that 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.159 they said would keep him safer, he said, sure, why not. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.400 It's a motion tracking sensor that sits on his chest. Yeah. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:31.800 Come in the morning, I grab this, I grab my radio. 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.400 Um yeah, trap it right on and go to work. 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.800 It's pretty easy. The device basically warns Jack when he's 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.960 lifting boxes with bad form. He says, it's hot in 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.199 better habits. Yeah, sometimes I noticed, uh, if I was 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.159 bending forward a little more like reaching deeper into a palette, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.159 that might have been something that would they would vibrate 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.720 on me for but uh started walking around to the 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.080 side of the paletts. Yeah, thanks to the reminder and 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:04.520 kind of gotten away from that now too. This same sensor, though, 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.200 is also gathering incredibly detailed information on his every movement, 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:14.000 and it's sending that information to his bosses. It's one 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.039 of the many technologies today allowing employers to monitor their workers, 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.920 especially in blue collar professions, and it's a trend that's 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:27.840 troubling worker rights advocates. Today, in the show, reporter Joshua 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.360 Bustine investigates the dilemma behind the technology Jack's been testing. 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.039 Tools like it have the potential to bring real benefits 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.080 to high risk jobs, but do workers risk giving up 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:43.000 too much information about themselves? Amako, you're listening to Decrypted 0:01:43.480 --> 0:02:01.800 Stay with us, Jash. How's it going good? How are 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.120 you good things? I think your story this week is 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.800 something that hits a nerve and a lot of people. Yeah. No, 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.520 one really likes the idea of being tracked by their boss, right. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.640 You know, this is something that's become pretty widespread, I 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.520 think in the blue collar workforce. I've been reading a 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.000 lot about the ways that workers in Amazon's fulfillment centers, 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.360 for example, have been tracked. Yeah, but you're referring to 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.040 are the production quotas that a lot of workplaces use. 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.200 Amazon certainly uses them. The idea being that you can 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.520 track exactly how fast a worker is doing something from 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.560 minutes a minute, and then make sure that they're not 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.520 doing it even the slightest bit slower. The tracking we're 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:46.040 talking about here is actually slightly different. The company that 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.480 makes the trackers, a startup in Brooklyn called strong Arm, 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.679 says that they are tracking only data to tell how 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.600 someone is moving in an attempt to determine when they 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.280 might be at higher risk of injury. And they're specifically 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.120 saying that they are not trying to track production data. 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.200 Tell me about them strong Arm. Sure. They're a small 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.679 company started by a guy named Sean Peterson, and he's 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.160 a pretty interesting guy. He told me that he always 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:16.760 wanted to be an inventor. His grandfather invented things for 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:21.520 the railroads, and then his dad had a construction company 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.079 out on Long Island, where Sean is from, and even 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.200 as a kid, Sean would work alongside him. Said he 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.919 always just really loved the idea of working with his hands. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.640 He had a pretty amazing workshop, and before he passed away, 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:34.600 he just taught me how to kind of get into 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.360 the tools and start working at Then my father was 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:42.560 a rant, a construction company and that contracting company. You know, 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:44.760 by the time I was twelve, I could lay an 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:49.640 entire roof by myself. Um, the gratification and work itself 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.160 was just ingrained in me when I was a little guy. 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.400 And Sean actually started getting interested in workplace safety issues 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.680 when he was young and his father was actually killed 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.520 in a workplace accident. Uh, I don't really want to 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.200 talk too much detail about kind of stinking of it, 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:09.840 but he died on the drop in. They're way way 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.680 too many things that happened that could have recoided that. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.520 And as he got older, Sean combined these two principles 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.080 of his and he wanted to invent something that would 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:27.200 help prevent workplace injuries um in the future. And so 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.040 Sean started a company. It's called strong Arm Technologies, and 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.800 its main product is a small device that sits on 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:40.080 your chest and tracks all of your movements. And the 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:45.960 idea is that if people in manual labor jobs warthies 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.520 all day, you would gather enough information to tell who 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.120 was making movements that were associated with injuries and then 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.080 be able to deal with them. So, Josh, what what 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:02.040 does the device look like? So the device is a 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:07.200 small black box. Basically, it's a rectangle. It's about the 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:12.400 size of a small smartphone maybe, and it fits into 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.960 a little harness you wear kind of over your shoulders. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.200 So it sits right against your chest, left shoulder, it's 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.880 gonna come around your waist. And that's Alex Teller. He's 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.480 another strong Arm executive. And what you're hearing is him 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.000 actually helping me put on the device. Feel a buzz 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:34.159 in your hand, Yeah, but already warning me that I'm doing. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.039 And this device tracks your movement kind of like a fitbit. 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.080 It's sort of like a fitbit, but gathering detail at 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.640 a much greater level. A fitbit counts your steps, which 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.640 doesn't actually tell you all that much. This thing counts 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.520 exactly the way that you bend from moment to moment 0:05:54.600 --> 0:06:00.880 for the entire day, So you know, it's taking the 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:06.279 fitbit and it is like massively increasing the detail that 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:15.600 the device gathers about your physical activity throughout the day. 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.280 And Josh, where's this thing being used? So strong Arm, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.240 for such a small company, actually has a very impressive 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:28.279 list of clients. I talked to Toyota about a pilot 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.080 that they just started with strong Arm at a plant 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.240 in Indiana. They're used by some facilities that Heineken runs. 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:40.320 And I also visited a warehouse in eastern Pennsylvania that's 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:48.440 run by a company called geodas friends, and what was 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.120 it like. So it's in an area where everything is 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.760 logistics facility. It was actually right next door to an 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:59.920 Amazon fulfillment center, which was interesting and really just enorm 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.560 a facility. Workers picking things out of boxes, packing them 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.320 into smaller boxes. There were conveyor belts and fork cliffs, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.240 and the workers there were wearing strong Arms device. So 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.600 strong Arm is currently in a pilot phase at this facility. Jack, 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:21.080 this is Josh, Josh, Jack, Are you good yourself? So 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.760 that's Jack Wesley. He's the warehouse worker we heard from 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.320 at the top of the episode. Jack works in the freezer, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.520 which is maybe the most dangerous part of the Geodas warehouse, 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.320 and he's actually wearing the strong Arm device when I 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.520 talked to him, even in the interview, he said he 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.520 puts it on every day just as part of his routine. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.680 Jack and all the other workers you spoke with, did 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.680 they seem a little skeptical or worried about this idea 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.880 of being tracked all day by this device. I talked 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.000 to a handful of workers and all of them were 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.640 a little bit worried at first. They had some misconceptions. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.240 Here's Jack again. When it first came out. You know, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.160 I heard from some of the other people myself included. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.440 It had a video camera, you know, microphone things like that, 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.920 but it's just monitoring your movements, make sure you're bending properly, 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.680 and yeah, that's all. That's all it does. So once 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:12.880 we figured that out, everybody was kind of they were 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.160 more relaxed about it. And you're comfortable with that because 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.920 you feel like that is a benefit to you opposed 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.040 to if they're taking video of your then like if 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.520 you're rolling your eyes or something, they'll figure that. Yeah, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.840 oh yeah, like, uh, it's not like a chest cam 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.160 at a traffic stop or anything like that. It's uh, 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.440 just making sure you're you're bending properly. We don't want 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:40.679 any injuries at the workplace. It's worth noting that the 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.079 workers are tracked in other ways as well. The warehouse 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.040 is full of cameras and Geodas also uses a production 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.760 tracking system where workers are measured on how fast they're working. 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.800 People at Geodas make between twelve fifty and fifteen dollars 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.280 an hour to start, but if they work fast enough 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.439 they can get bone to say, up to five dollars 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.240 extra per hour. Wow, So that's a lot of ways 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.880 that they're being tracked. Yeah, and as I understand it, 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.880 this isn't an unusual level of monitoring for the industry. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.079 The businesses who work in logistics and transportation are really 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.000 data hungry. They're trying to gather as much information about 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.920 their facilities as possible. Here's Mike Conius, he's the chief 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.040 operating officer at GEODAS, and he explained to me how 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.520 he wants to eventually be able to take all these 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.679 different data streams and put them together to learn new 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.959 things about his operations. So I pulled my productivity data. 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.160 It shows exactly the type of speed and productivity this 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.720 person was doing by the minute. We can actually break 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.920 it down by the second. Then you apply the ergonomics 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.920 data to it on the exact same timeline, and you 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.080 can see the motions of the person bending and what 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.400 they're doing, and you can see that right along the 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.679 same timeline as the productivity. And then you can put 0:09:57.679 --> 0:09:59.880 the robotic side on it and you can see all 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.120 that play out. And then all of a sudden, from 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.559 there you can look at, Okay, is there an opportunity 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.839 we have a little bit idle time? Was there some 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.199 lifting there? That created the operator, you know, our teammate 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.199 to slow down and can we correct that. In the past, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.080 traditionally we haven't been able to see that, And in 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.840 the meantime, Geodas is actually already making some changes. There's 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:21.839 one place in the warehouse that I saw, and it's 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.040 a conveyor belt. Workers stand alongside it and they're picking 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.840 boxes up and moving them off to the side. And 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.160 what the company noticed was that there were certain parts 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.880 along the conveyor belt where people were just twisting too far. 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:35.840 So they had a manager go talk to people who 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.040 work on this part of the operation and say, hey, 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.880 watch out for this right now, it's just a coaching opportunity, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.360 But Geodas says it may also use this information to 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.760 change the layouts of the conveyor belts in the future 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:53.440 so that people don't end up making these motions inadvertently. So, Josh, 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:55.719 it sounds like people are pretty happy about this, but 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:01.480 I don't know. I'm worried that this could go very wrong. Yeah, So, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.120 both strong Arm and the clients I talked to put 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.160 a very cheery face on this, but other people who 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.840 I've spoken with are really concerned about worker surveillance and 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.200 put this into that bucket, and I think they're worried 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.080 first of all, that just any sort of data you're 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.080 gathering about workers in this situation is going to be 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.480 used to just squeeze a little bit more productivity out 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.840 of them, And workers don't like that because they're already 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.120 working super hard. Yeah. I who wants your boss to 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.160 tell you, oh, you have to work at your absolute 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.199 capacity every time? And also I know what your absolute 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.960 capacity is. And once you're determining just how fast everybody 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.160 can work, you could see employers wanting to punish those 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.839 people who don't work quite as fast as everybody else. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.000 And why are workers so worried about that? So a 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.640 lot of workers feel like their bosses have plenty of 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:57.400 power over them already, and giving them another tool that 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.320 they might use to punish them is just not need Yeah, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.080 it just feels like it's further tipping the balance. And 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.880 the final thing that I heard when talking to people 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.079 about this was that if you're gathering information about workers health, 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.440 there is bound to be a tie in to workers 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.960 compensation claims. Yeah. I can see this being freely contentious, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.320 especially in a field of work where the rate of 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.200 injury is so high. Yeah, I think this comes down 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.360 again to whether or not workers trust their employers. And 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.280 you know, the people I talked to at geodas said 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.320 they did, but that's not universally true. So what does 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:39.400 strong arms say about all this? These are not criticisms 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:43.800 that strong harm has not heard before. The first thing 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.600 they say is that they do not measure productivity data, 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.160 and they have discussions with their clients in which they 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.880 say they do not want the trackers to be used 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.280 to punish individuals. But I also talked to Sean about it. 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.160 He said he hadn't seen clients do anything that even 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:02.760 got close to problematic, but that if they did, he 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.840 would be willing to take the technology back or just 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.880 cut off certain types of data. And we trust the 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:10.960 clients to do the right thing with that right now, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.240 and if we start to see clients not doing the 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.640 right thing, we can further adjust the dissemination of some 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.079 of that information. So it sounds like these concerns haven't 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.800 materialized yet, but it does sound like this would be 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.400 something that labor unions would have a lot of problems with. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.520 One thing that made my ears really perk up in 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:34.400 my first conversation with strong Arm was there, claims that 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:42.360 they worked closely with organized labor. Because I'm like you, Aki, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.520 I've had conversations with organized labor about technology before, and 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.200 this just didn't seem like something that they would be 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.640 particularly enthusiastic about. So I was eager to talk to 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.760 those unions. And when I asked strong Arm to put 0:13:54.760 --> 0:14:00.400 me in touch with some of them, they balked, So 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.680 what did you do? Well? I tracked down union local 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.840 in Lynn, Massachusetts that took part in a strong Arm pilot. 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.200 The guy I spoke to was Adam Kazinski. He's the 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.559 current president of i U e c W, a local 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.560 two oh one. Adam was a shop steward at the 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.600 time that strong Arm showed up at his workplace, and 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.200 he did say that there were lots of injuries amongst 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.880 the folks who worked there. I was in an area 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.560 that requires a lot of twisting and turning and pushing 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.000 and pulling bench work, sheet metal spot well, and we 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.520 had had high rates of ergonomic injuries in the area. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.720 And even though Adam acknowledged that there was a real 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:44.480 problem where he worked, he was really skeptical of this idea. 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:46.680 He thought that this was giving his employer a lot 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.520 of information that he wasn't sure it needed, and he 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.120 told me that he actually advised other members of the 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:56.840 union not to participate in the program, which was voluntary. Well, 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.880 when you work with your body, ergonomic data is production. 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.320 By the way, when Adam says armstrong, he means strong arm. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.160 So you know what, whether Armstrong says that's their intention 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.400 or not, there are clients or potential clients to see 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:15.760 your value in tracking productions through monitoring people's bodies. He 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.680 just didn't believe that this sort of tracking would end 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.920 up benefiting workers, no matter how was pitched initially. You 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.640 know that I don't have to speculate about why people 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.520 are interested in it. It's because they want to do 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.880 more with less. They want workers to work faster, longer, 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:39.040 and increase production while mitigating workers. Comps claims, that's I 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.880 mean clearly what this is about to me. You know 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.000 that's surprising given what strong arm told you. Yeah, I 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.240 was certainly surprised. So what ended up happening. Adams says 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.800 that a lot of people didn't want to wear those 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.080 trackers and that those who did soon stopped wearing them, 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.360 and the pilot kind of fizzled well, that they didn't 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.400 collect an up data to tell him anything, and that 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.400 people kind of dropped off before they were able to 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.360 get any good data, and that no one was impressed 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.560 with the program and the way it went down, so 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:18.640 basically just flopped. I a strong arm about this, and 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.840 they took issue with the idea that it flopped. But 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:27.840 they did say that they didn't finish the pilot program, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.600 that they weren't able to kind of gather all the 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.920 data and implement any of the sort of changes that 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.600 they've done in other places, and that basically this was 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:47.440 um a learning experience for the company. Josh. At the 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.880 start of this episode, we talked about how widespread workplace 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:56.320 surveillance has become in blue collar industries, but the reality 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:58.880 is that this is everywhere right and in white color 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.680 work too. Yeah, I think the tension is really across 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.760 the working world in both blue collar and white collar workplaces. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.600 It's just easier to gather more and more information about 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.520 what your workers are doing and then do something with it. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.639 The company makes a good case that it can gather 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.920 more data about how you move at work and use 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.320 it to reduce the rates of injuries, but it can't 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.040 get away from the fact that when it does that, 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.080 it's also creating all this information that employers might use 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:36.920 for other things as well. And I think that fuels 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.560 a real broader vulnerability going on here, which is that 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.400 everyone's aware that there's more and more data being collected 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:50.639 about us in the workplace, other places online, and we 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.919 know that there's a lot of power in this information 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.360 being gathered and analyzed, but we don't have a mechanism 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.760 to say, hey, let's stop and figure this out before 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.679 we go forward, and so it just kind of progresses 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:11.040 whether we like it or not. Joshua Bristine, thanks for 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:16.560 coming on the show today. Thank you. Decrypted is hosted 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.520 by me as Sean When is Our Executive producer, Ethan 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.240 Brooks mikes a show today and Francesco Levie is ahead 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.440 of Bloomberg podcast. We'll see next week.