The explosion of WFH and hybrid working may have made lots of us feel we have more flexibility and freedom – but in reality, your boss might have a tighter grip on your working habits than ever before.
Activity monitoring is growing more and more common – in the UK for example, less than a fifth of people believed they were being monitored in 2023, but now – 85% of employers admit to spying on their employees.
Unsurprisingly, this has become worse with the advent of AI. Technology can track pretty much anything you do nowadays, and it’s much creepier than you think.
‘Bossware’ is no longer just the basics of monitoring, it can track activity patterns, analyze unusual behavior, flag internal communications, and can even include facial recognition tools – so what do you need to know?
You’re being watched
This isn’t comparable to CCTV outside your workplace or timestamped cards to clock in and out – this is much more intense and comprehensive surveillance of every move your mouse makes, web page you click on, or message you send.
If you think you’re not being watched, you’re probably wrong. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of companies admit to using software to log web browsing, and as much as 62% use this to track screens in real time – research from Express VPN found.
This doesn’t sit well with employees either, the vast majority (77%) of workers believe companies should be legally required to disclose all forms of monitoring, with 78% supporting stricter regulations and laws for employers.
The disintegration of trust between employers and their employees has only deepened as large companies manufacture consent by introducing tools to normalize the model of constant technological spying – illustrated by Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, which came under fire for worker surveillance, although Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce all provide similar field service management applications.
How they do it
Most of this spyware comes under the guise of ‘productivity’ tracking.
Keystroke logging records each key pressed by employees and essentially tracks every sentence you type, website you search, or anything you copy-and-paste. Similarly, email tracking keeps records of every email sent as well as time stamps and attachments.
Screen capture and screen recordings take regular screenshots of an employees device or just continuously record their screen – which might sound over the top, but it is a feature that employee monitoring software tools offer.
Web monitoring and GPS tracking tools are pretty self explanatory, recording which sites employees visit and their movement, especially used in the case of sales representatives or field workers.
Companies like Veriato take it a bit further, offering ‘investigations’ which ‘collect, review, and report on the online and communication activity’ of employees through keystroke logging, email and chat monitoring, network activity, and real-time alerts – even boasting ‘discreet deployment’, with software activated remotely from a ‘cloud-based admin console, if you don’t wish to alarm the target of your investigation.’
How to resist
If you haven’t been made aware of tracking software or haven’t given your consent, you may want to raise this with your employer and request to see the data they hold or clarify the business purpose of the monitoring.
Unfortunately, if you don’t have administrative privileges on your computer, it’s difficult to get around the software. The classic ‘post-it note on the camera’ will help, but it won’t have any effect on the tracking software installed on your device.
However, while you might not be able to stop it, you can detect the tracking software – so you don’t get caught out.
Check your task manager to see what software is running on your device – look for any you don’t recognize or any that seem unusual. By pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del or Ctrl + Alt + Esc you can find ‘task manager’ to access this list.
You can also check background processes by using the MS-DOS command line. Press Windows + R, and type ‘cmd’ into the search box. From there, type ‘tasklist’ to access information about the current background processes. Again, look for names you don’t recognize – these won’t have obvious names, so just look for any that you aren’t familiar with.
If you have serious concerns – you can also analyze your network traffic. Look specifically for spikes in traffic during work hours – tracking tools are expensive, your employer is unlikely to run them outside of work hours or on the weekend.
Finally, if you’re serious (and don’t mind upsetting your boss!), then you can install anti-spy software. Look for the best malware removal tools that focus on spyware specifically – there are even some free versions out there that could help if all you want to do is prove it’s happening.
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