Sure thing boss. As soon as you pay for an extension to the house I'll have that extra room that I can allow monitoring in.<p>Tbh This sort of <insert rude word here> shouldn't be legal unless the company pays rent for said room that is turned into a work place(market price for the area). While not a lot can afford the extra room at least those that don't have a choice get a boost to help them move to bigger housing.
An employee is either performant or not, you can easily just look at the results of their work. Monitoring call center workers is particularly easy - you just record their calls. I have zero idea of how monitoring them, let alone their family visually can add any value.<p>If somebody insisted to install a camera at my home I would let them and then work nude 100% time.
I've put this is two replies, but I guess it needs to be at the top level so people who don't read the article might have a shot at seeing it. The people being interviewed and quoted in this article work in offshored customer support for Apple and Amazon in <i>Albania</i> and <i>Colombia</i>.<p>Albania was a single-party communist state until 1995. Colombia was effectively a narco state until maybe a decade ago. They're both pretty fast growing now, but I don't think the root of these laborers' problems is they got a humanities degree in a STEM market, and the "market" for their labor may not be much more than this or go work for a local crime lord, who might pay better but definitely will not treat you better.<p>It'd be nice if we as Americans or generally wealthy OECD westerners could be less provincial in our views of how labor deserves to be treated. They're not all in the same situation as us with the same options. When the program I work on told us we all need to have cameras on in meetings, I told them to pound dirt. I only half own this house, and if my wife wants to walk around naked, that's her prerogative. Don't like it, find someone else. Great for me, because I'm in a situation where they need me more than I need them. But I'm not going to act like that's a common situation globally, and these people are no less deserving of giving their families a right to privacy than I am.<p>I don't know what to do about this from a policy perspective. Better labor laws are great and all, but the entire reason companies like Apple and Amazon contract out work like this to the lowest bidder who then hires in Albania is they don't need to adhere to US labor laws.
I 100% get this one.<p>A company has an obligation to protect their customers' data, due to GDPR and a variety of other privacy rules. If one of their people - employee or contractor - has access to customer data, the company <i>must</i> mitigate it being stolen. In an office environment, they could do that by limiting personal devices, barring notes and other information going out.<p>When these positions become WFH - even with a company owned/managed device - they have an entire new class of threats to mitigate: personal devices, shoulder surfing, etc by <i>not the employee</i> but someone standing next to them.<p>While I <i>hate</i> the surveillance aspects, I want my account information protected and I don't see a better approach in an uncontrolled/unknowable environment.
People aren't going to like this take, but it's fairly simple from security point of view given that many companies have to adhere to security standards around "physical security", such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2.<p>You either go back in to the office, where companies can ensure the security of their networks and environments, or you don't have a job. I don't agree with this, but in terms of security, when people are working from home there are standards that we simply cannot meet, which could potentially cost a small business large contracts.<p>Scoping is important and these issues will have to be figured out now in the post-pandemic world.
why is this bad? there's a lot of personal / confidential info they deal with. and when they work in office, there are strict rules like no phones, no pen/pencil, etc at the work area.