Companies are using webcams to monitor employees working from home | Hacker News Reader

Companies are using webcams to monitor employees working from home

businessinsider.com

22 pointsjoeyespo7 comments

Do companies let employees know about this? What if you put a camera cover on? I know there's no expectation of privacy at work, but this is my home. I don't want your camera photographing my home every 5 minutes.

Atleast these companies install the software on company laptops. I was asked to install a much more invasive software on my personal laptops (They wanted me as consultant) which took screenshots, logs keystrokes and pictures every 5 minutes. Needless to say I declined but clearly there are people working for the said company who are fine with this level of invasive tools.

That would be hard pass for me, even if I had to live in a box under the bridge no way I am agreeing to that for any level of income....

> there's also lots of teams out there who are good friends

nope, not even for my life long friends who pretty much know everything embarrassing about be would I would to have this service

You wouldn't use sneek if I paid you a billion a year? Really?

Sneek sounds like Swiggle (https://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/sqwiggle-makes-working-rem...)

I quite liked it back in the day. Made it easy to know if a colleague was around to answer a chat without hassling them too much, the remote equivalent of standing up to see if they’re at their desk or off to lunch.

Culture is everything. This article makes it sound like it’s pure spyware. If your boss is monitoring it constantly and mandates you have it on and are visible, sure that’s bad. For us it was a team decision and we all liked the benefits of seeing each other.

The difference is if you stand up in an office I can probably hear you and have some awareness of being looked at. However with this you can see my face without me knowing you're looking.

I've been on and managed remote teams. The metric of productivity is if the work is being done, not if you're at your desk staring at your screen.

There are lots of other ways to keep up with a team of "friends". Chat, email, phone calls, and arranged meetings all work great.

Sellotape & piece of paper does wonders

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