Employee monitoring platforms shared data with Facebook and Yandex — Fortune
Nine popular employee monitoring platforms shared users’ personal and technical data with third-party companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the Russian search engine Yandex. Fortune reports, citing a study by specialists from Vanderbilt University, Northeastern University, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Researchers registered for the services as employers, deployed nine platforms, including Hubstaff, Deputy, and Time Doctor 2, and then logged in as employees to record the data transfers.
All nine programs sent employee identifying data, including names and email addresses, to external companies. The study’s authors recorded 121 instances of such transfers involving Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and advertising technology company AppLovin.
Transfer of technical data
Separately, the nine applications transmitted data on employees’ online activity to 145 third-party domains. This information included IP addresses, device information, and website browsing data. Among the domains that received such data, the researchers named Yandex.
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A third of the tested platforms could determine an employee’s precise location, including when the application was running in the background or when the person was outside working hours. Three of the nine programs required access to a phone’s motion sensors even to register the start of a shift.
Workplace monitoring tools
Employee surveillance technologies were widely introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employers can use them to track location, task completion, and communications, as well as to access the cameras of company-issued smartphones and laptops.
Wilneida Negrón, director of research and policy at the nonprofit organization Coworker, said that modern artificial intelligence and data analysis tools enable employers to compile large volumes of information about employees. According to her, such data can be used to punish employees or attempt to predict their behavior.
Digital privacy experts advise against using work devices for family matters or confidential information, including health information. They also recommend that employees find out exactly what data their employer collects and whether monitoring features are enabled in programs such as Microsoft Office and Zoom.
