Digital monitoring is now a regular part of our working reality. From CCTV cameras to call recording, surveillance in the workplace is not new.
But workers now face a more detailed and intrusive type of monitoring that is less understood, and at times even entirely unknown, by employees: employee monitoring applications (EMAs).
It’s no longer just about being captured in the frame of a CCTV camera or having phone calls recorded. Workers now must be concerned about the collection of any and all activities that occur on their devices, and the use of this information to make decisions about their productivity, performance and risk to company security.
Behavior-monitoring software
EMAs are a type of monitoring software that can be installed on worker devices to monitor their behaviors and activities. Common features include tracking time, keyboard strokes, email communications, websites visited, applications used and webcam video footage. Many of these apps also operate in an “invisible mode” that runs in the background, unknown to the employee.
Amid the move to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, employers faced the challenge of managing their employees while they worked from home. EMAs provided employers with a quick and easy solution.
My research focuses on surveillance and privacy. Working alongside surveillance scholar Adam Molnar of the University of Waterloo, we conducted a survey between January and February 2022 of 402 managers, supervisors and employers working in companies in Ontario (60%), British Columbia (30%) and Québec (10%) to better understand the use of these apps during the pandemic.
Both remote working and EMA use were found to have increased after the start of the pandemic. Many, but not all, companies turned to EMAs to monitor their remote workers.
Privacy concerns
We asked participants about the specific EMA software their company uses. A variety of EMAs exist on the market and are advertised for uses from security to workforce analytics. The most frequently used apps in our sample were Kickidler (49.8%), Spyera (49.5%), Flexispy (49.3%), and Teramind (48.4%).
We then took a deeper dive into their advertised features and found that all four apps collected data using at least two highly invasive features, such as video surveillance or keystroke logging.
Collecting data in these ways can raise serious concerns for employee privacy, especially when they work at home—a space that is typically viewed as private and often contains personal information that employers should not be privy to.
If we’re concerned about employee privacy, then we need to understand exactly what companies are using the data for.
We know that employee monitoring apps were adopted by many Canadian companies to manage remote workers, but what does that mean exactly? What is the data actually telling employers and how are they using it?
We asked employers, managers and supervisors how their company currently uses EMAs, and found the most common uses to be productivity (28.9%), efficiency (20.1%), remote workforce management (19.9%) and company analytics (18.2%).
Privacy versus productivity
Owners and managers appear to be aware of the harmful consequences of these applications: 87.1% were at least somewhat concerned about the negative impacts of these apps on employee trust. More than two-thirds—70.7%—also reported that they would be more likely adopt an app if it did not use invasive features like keystroke logging and video surveillance.
Are the gains in productivity and efficiency worth the losses to employee privacy and trust? For some companies, the answer appears to be yes. While most owners and managers reported concerns about the invasiveness of EMAs, 51.7% were still using the applications.
For other companies, the gains in productivity are not worth the risks to employee privacy. For example, 29.3% of owners and managers stated that significant changes to app features would be necessary before they would consider using it in their company.
Protecting employees
As hybrid working arrangements remain a normal part of our working lives, employee monitoring apps appear to be here to stay.
A public opinion poll by the Center for Democracy and Technology in the United States found that American workers wanted to know why and how they were being monitored by their employers.
Workers also felt they should be able to review any and all data collected about them, and that employers should be prohibited from sharing worker data without their permission, monitoring workers while off the clock, tracking their locations and monitoring productivity in ways that are harmful to the mental or physical health of workers.
In Canada, the protection of employee privacy falls under a patchwork of federal and provincial laws that is insufficient for the management of EMAs.
Worker protections vary by province and territory. Ontario’s Bill 88, passed in April 2022, established the first notification law for electronic monitoring in Canada. While a step in the right direction, notification alone is insufficient for the protection of worker privacy and well-being.
Restrictions must be placed on the types of data collected, how it is collected and what it can be used for.
Companies that continue to use EMAs must respect the privacy of workers by limiting the use of invasive features and providing workers with transparency and agency in their monitoring.
Business owners considering the use of EMAs should ask themselves if the software is necessary to reach their goals. Do they need to track the location and activity of workers or access their webcams to determine productivity? Or are there other less harmful ways to measure performance, such as the quality of outputs and whether tasks are completed on time?
