Don't snoop on staff via wearables, says Dutch privacy agency The Netherlands' Data Protection Authority has decided that even with consent, companies shouldn't use fitness trackers to monitor their employees. Its argument is that there's an asymmetry between employer and employee that's likely to make staff feel they need to say “yes” if the boss starts handing out Fitbits (or whatever …
> Any company with even the remotest sense of what is right would already have known where the line was.
Since this is self-evident, I assume either:
a) we don't know the whole story (eg the company set up a server for employees to monitor their health, but since it was a company server they also had access to it... or some other convoluted story) or
b) this company is severely dysfunctional.
Hmm. Maybe b) is just as likely as a).
actually, it's C) : it's a Bong¡-type consultancy, mainly operating in the healthcare administration and regulation business.
Dutch consultancy speak is ..different.. from english and doesn't translate well, but imagine their web page being full of the pro-active thinkfluencing with a Smile! guff you can expect from the british equivalent. To quote Marvin: "It's all rather sad, really..." Pictures say more than words.. look at the way they present their consultants.. doesn't need translation, really.
And they're definitely the type of company where this kind of thing would be seen as a Pilot Project into the Bright Future etc.. They *probably* intended to use this as a showcase for the potential of these devices for outpatient monitoring ( where it makes sense ) without considering that the way they've gone about it would push a couple of Buttons in the privacy department.
> I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.
Is that a quote from something? I assume I'm missing context, because in virtually every company over about 100 employees, staff are given numbers, briefings and debriefings are common (if not daily) and everything is indexed.
I deal with a number of small companies of less than 10 people and I can assure you that some sort of ID is used in every case to identify who wrote what and when.
Besides, you are already stamped, indexed, filed and numbered since you were born, and moreso when you get paid a salary. Do you think your local Tax Office is using your picture to know who you are ?
Nope... according to the kind of mentality working in personnel departments, you are a number, data of which is to be collected, collated, cross-referenced, and, if possible, sold at a profit. And I've seen that happen at a company with a total of less than 20 employees.
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