The cyber arms race over WFH: How employers are deploying increasingly sophisticated surveillance tools to watch employees at home and check if they are REALLY off sick… while employees fight back with mouse-twiddling devices to game the system.
Employers are monitoring the active statuses of employees, tracking their activity, and even taking live images of them. However, employees are fighting back with robotic mouse movers, active status software, and smart technological hacks.
Messaging technologies such as Slack offer employers access to all employee interactions.
By simply using an alternative chat platform, staff workers can circumvent some of these restrictions.
Companies are employing ever-more-advanced malware to monitor their work-from-home employees, while employees are retaliating with their own tools.
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a fundamental shift in working patterns, with millions of employees quitting crowded offices to work from home. However, despite masks and social distance being relegated to the past, many white-collar professionals cling to old routines and demand flexible work schedules from their managers.
Employers began employing web tools and software to monitor employees at home, even photographing them in real-time, monitoring their keyboard and mouse movements, and using phone apps to assess vital signs such as heart rate to determine if they are truly unwell.
However, outraged staff have begun to strike back by deploying their own technologies to deceive their superiors.
Employers can easily monitor their employees by checking their status on work-related applications such as Slack and MS Teams, which allow them to determine whether each employee is ‘active,’ ‘inactive,’ or ‘offline.
Slack enables managers to take it a step further and request a complete data download from the company, allowing them to obtain logs of all employer activity and messages. The more expensive versions of the program make it easier for managers to maintain a more current employee database.
Software such as Sneek (shown) enables employers to view a live video of their employees at home and take photographs of them every five minutes.
Mouse jigglers enable workers to circumvent the system by leaving their desks while their mouse continues to move.
Office messaging services like Slack are used to monitor whether employees are ‘active’; yet, simple software enables employees to design their account to always be active.
There are worries about employee privacy despite claims that staff monitoring enhances productivity and discourages lengthy breaks.
While some businesses use software that continuously video contacts employees, some employees are investing in cutting-edge technology or simply adjusting their computer settings to allow them to step away from lengthy phone and video sessions without their screen going to sleep.
Microsoft Teams also permits employers to monitor employee statuses and provides them with message access as needed.
The use of ‘bossware’ technology downloaded onto employees’ devices enables them to monitor every move on a computer in real-time, allowing them to watch everything you do.
Then there are programs that allow for the secret recording of computer screens, allowing bosses to view a live stream of an employee’s monitor.
Due to the simplicity of evading simpler measures, several businesses have resorted to photographing or filming their staff.
One of the best software options for this is Sneek, an always-on group conference call system that lets an employer to view all of their employees’ faces at once.
It takes images of employees every five minutes, allowing managers to determine if an employee has been absent for an extended amount of time or has fallen asleep during that two-hour Zoom session.
Then there is traditional espionage. The Mail On Sunday reported in 2020 that some employers were using private investigators to check on sick employees to determine if they were truly isolating themselves when absent with covid.
However, staff are getting more technologically aware and are pushing back against the growing clandestine surveillance.
Now that the pandemic is gone, the private investigator approach is much less foolproof, but at the time, organizations like as Diligens Private Investigations actively offered to “collect evidence” on employees who were suspected to be falsely calling in sick.
Basic purchases enable employees to fool low-level malware into believing they are actively working – as they make a cup of coffee, respond to personal email, or simply shut off for five minutes.
USB mouse jigglers and similar devices are programmed to move a mouse across the screen automatically, making it appear like you are working. It can help prevent a screen from falling to sleep during calls or meetings.
Mouse jigglers might be little USB sticks, bigger devices, or even Bluetooth-enabled devices.
As the United Kingdom entered several lockdowns, the coronavirus epidemic prompted a rise in remote work.
From USB sticks for computers to “mouse decks” that encase a physical mouse in a casing and move it properly, the popularity of these fast fixes has increased since the pandemic began in 2020.
A further essential utility is software that maintains the ‘active’ status of employees on office communication platforms such as Slack.
Presence Scheduler is only one of many websites that allow users to set themselves as active during specific times of the day, even when they are not at their workplace.
Recent advancements include mouse jigglers that function when not attached to a mouse or computer, making it impossible to identify that a staff member is using another device.
There are further alternatives for employees who do not wish to invest in new technology. Using text messages or WhatsApp instead of company-owned messaging systems to communicate with coworkers can limit the quantity of contact that is monitored by an employer.
Those using their own devices have also been able to counteract some of their supervisor’s tactics by modifying their settings.
Now, many managers want their employees to return to the office full-time, but they face an uphill battle against those who want to work from home.
More than 80 percent of employees who worked from home during the epidemic now desire a combination of home and office work, or “hybrid” working, according to the most recent ONS data.
The percentage of workers who perform hybrid work has increased from 13 percent in early February 2022 to 24 percent in May 2022. The percentage of people who work solely from home has decreased from 22% to 14% over the same time period.
Employers assert that employees are more productive at the office, and government officials have echoed this sentiment by urging employees to return to the workplace.
Some are eager to return to the workplace out of concern for growing living expenses and high heating expenditures if they continue to work from home.
Dr. Claudia Pagliari, a researcher in digital health and society at the University of Edinburgh, has previously stated that employers have increased their efforts to measure their employees’ time, just as they would in the real world.
She stated, “People are working from home, and many organizations are beginning to want to track what they’re doing.”
Some employees have raised ethical concerns about surveillance, but it appears to be here to stay for the time being.
