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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Norwegian privacy law.
"privacy" is not a crime, you need to be more specific. I would maybe understand if the employer was taking pictures of the employee with a webcam, but they were taking screenshots of the machine owned by the company - how is there any expectation of privacy if you're using company equipment?
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It appears to be standard practice everywhere in corporate America.
It's standard practice if you agree to it in your employment contract.
We had a bad manager at my last company who really wanted to do this sort of thing. I said to him “So this is an interesting proposal... if we install this software then I can save on management costs by replacing your position with this spyware?” He never brought it up again and we later just got rid of him completely. Micromanagement and this sort of spying rarely builds high performing teams. Managing worker produ…
micromanagement is life support for low performers
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Only if the employee is informed upfront. Otherwise it's a privacy issue.
Let's assume they were informed upfront - there's nothing illegal about it then, is there?
Edit: Apparently there are now at least two examples of this.
In Sweden, relating to facial recognition:
https://www.gamingtechlaw.com/2019/09/fine-gdpr-sweden.html
In Poland, relating to fingerprints:
https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/06/polish-school-hit-with-gd...
The more spy software a boss buys, the more insecure they really are about themselves.
I feel fortunate to work with people who want to treat each other like adults. That's been my managers' perspectives, and it's well appreciated.
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I think less than 5% of comments on open-office design, that I have ever seen, were positive. Who are the people you are describing as being “sold”?
> I think less than 5% of comments on open-office design, that I have ever seen, were positive. It's basically taboo to say anything positive about open office spaces online. There are many, many legitimately terrible open office workspaces in the world. Suggesting that open offices aren't always bad feels like an attack on those who are miserable in their open office. So it's safer to just never bring it up. In the…
I like working on stuff at tech meetups. I always bring my laptop, mostly because the speakers can be boring and being in a room like that helps me focus on personal projects. I use to go to writing meetups too.
That being said, I absolutely hate open layouts. I would much rather prefer a cubical.
I'm not sure if this generalization would hold out if you surveyed people, but it might. I'd be curious.
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Where I live what he did is a fairly serious criminal offence.
No where is this a criminal offense in the USA. In fact, “spy software” installed on company computers is widely common.
Ex: California Social Media Law (2013)
https://readwrite.com/2013/01/15/californias-new-privacy-law...
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It appears to be standard practice everywhere in corporate America.
It's standard practice if you agree to it in your employment contract.
> Straight-up Big Brother, perhaps, but it’s perfectly legal for businesses to keep an unblinking eye on employees as long as they disclose they’re doing it.
It is the companies equipment, network (on their side of the VPN), time, and so forth. That being said it is legally fine so long as they disclose they are doing so.
If they monitor in ways that have not been disclosed they risk of a class action lawsuit should that knowledge be leaked to employees.
Let's look at a far more extreme example: US Army. US Army is not allowed to monitor user activity in that way and all users of Army networks are made aware of this. Users must also sign their agreement to an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) before gaining access to the network. The Army example is more extreme because the Army owns the computers, the network, and all physical network infrastructure that companies typically lease to ISPs. The Army has the ability to monitor user activity in ways that companies cannot and yet the Army does not do so because it's illegal without a probable cause search warrant or command directive with legal authorization.
For example, computers with an Army image monitor for attachment of mass storage devices and moment a phone or hard drive is plugged in the network administrator is immediately notified, the local network switch is automatically dropped from the network, and a report is automatically drafted for the respective violating unit. The Army can monitor for that because it is a violation of the AUP users signed, but they cannot monitor any associated content without probably cause and an AUP violation on its own is not probable cause.
I have heard, on the other hand, the Air Force monitors absolutely everything because they require their users to sign a consent to monitoring directive to gain access to the network.