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Comment by cjbprime | Hacker News Reader

The largest US pilots union opposes it on pilot privacy grounds. (To be clear, I think having an expectation of vocal privacy while you are in charge of an airliner is absurd.)

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Well, there is the theory and then there is the reality.

Theory: having less privacy makes things easier for accident investigators, post-mortem.

Reality: In this case, the pilots did their job and got the plane down safely despite rapid depressurization and literally having their headsets sucked off of their heads. It is extremely unlikely to be pilot-error that a door-plug ripped off the airframe at 16,000' or that investigators would learn anything significant from the process in the flight-deck before or after the incident. At least nothing that would root-cause this incident.

Your comment would only make sense if your example of reality showed the theory was flawed. However, your example of reality is unrelated to the theory, so not sure what your point is.

That is a non-sequitur. Investigators should have access to accident data regardless of whether the pilots did their job.

Root cause analysis isn't the only reason: it would be good for pilots to have this case study, as well as analysis on how systems responded to the abrupt change.

Having this data is strictly better than not having it.

Middle ground would be to have full media access for investigators, but a union rep managing a review and redaction process to have anything immaterial to the investigation redacted. This preserves both valuable data and privacy. Checks and balances.

I'd also propose that someone on the board has to be criminally responsible in case of any abuse. With asset forfeiture on the books.

> Root cause analysis isn't the only reason: it would be good for pilots to have this case study, as well as analysis on how systems responded to the abrupt change.

Yep, could be used as a "this is exactly what you do in this scenario" example for future pilots, or a "what did they do wrong" type real-world exercise for pilots to review (with no blame given to the OG pilots in this scenario for example).

That the plane landed safely is not an indication that every part of the post-incident process went well.

There could be steps that weren't followed, there could have been training gaps. There could have been secondary impacts of sudden depressurization that could have spiraled out of control, but the pilots thought on their feet to save the plane. We'd want to know exactly what they did so we could add it to the recovery process.

Privacy from an NTSB accident investigation is absurd. Privacy from your boss snooping you is reasonable.

I think there's some validity to the privacy concerns, but it seems those could be addressed with proper access controls and rules. The recordings should only really be listened to in the aftermath of an accident, in which case, as you say, the expectation of privacy should (in my opinion) take a backseat.

Indeed. Pretty much all your communication is recorded at any company you work for anyway.

My work does not have a recording of most of my verbal communication in office, and it’s a very secure site and project.

On one hand I agree with you.

On the other hand, if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy. I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it.

There has to be a better solution to this issue.. extended recordings in an emergency, triggers based on conditions, private keys for pilots... IDFK, cause I try not to get involved in engineering that might KILL someone.

I don't understand. Are you implying that recording a pilot's voice for more than two hours could kill someone? Or just that aviation is stressful and high stakes?

(I agree that it's stressful and high stakes, which is why we record it.)

Why not? Do you think other engineers are better suited for such work?

I’m just curious, because I personally work on things that could kill people directly or indirectly.

LOL:

I like the fact that I can say "People may have acted like someone was going to die, but my code never killed any one"... its a preference, I want to know I can have a bad day, fuck up, and not have to carry the weight for my whole life.

I was just asking.

> its a preference

Thanks.

> if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy

Many people live with this reality every day already. Remote workers with screen sharing software, certs installed so companies can spy on everything you do, retail workers under cameras all day.

Those people usually can take breaks away from the recorder.

> if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy

I'd be perfectly fine with not voice recording people who's daily work may or may not impact the global delivery of cat pictures.

I think if you choose a job where there are several hundred people's lives on the line relying on you doing your job professionally and correctly, the expectation of privacy argument is somewhat less convincing.

> I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it.

Some people literally have no choice. Do you think _any_ Amazon delivery driver is "happy" with their on-job surveillance? Do you think _any_ call centre worker is "happy" with "calls are recorded for quality and training purposes"?

I don’t disagree with you but we can’t ignore the fact that it’s much easier to find delivery drivers and call center workers than airline pilots.

As everything, it’s all about the leverage each side has.

> I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it.

I don't think I would care. Especially if it is only read out very infrequently (when we have an accident.)

Make it so they don't have reasonable suspicion CVR data won't be abused by the company, and you might get somewhere. For example criminal consequences for misuse that hit C-level and possible leakers.

Sincerely, someone who had death threats partially thanks to manipulated audio record that was done in good faith during investigation, which was leaked and edited later by third party who gained access to it 5 years later.

Reminds me of an exchange from Stranger Things (S4E3):

School counselor: Max, I'm… I'm sorry, I… I really can't discuss this. You wouldn't want me talking to any other students about you, right?

Max: If I were dead and it would help catch the killer, then yeah, I most definitely would.

https://subslikescript.com/series/Stranger_Things-4574334/se...

My wife ridicules me because when we went out to eat, before a multitude of children , I would often say “nobody ever tipped me as a meat clerk when I was working in 45 degrees elbows deep throwing away and scraping rotting meat from the shelves and gutters and then serving ‘fresh shrimp ‘ and organic grass fed filet mignon” when I felt expected to tip 20% for an already over priced meal.

As my first boss, meat clerk young lady, told me “shit rolls down hill.” More powerful people tend to get shitted on less. It was a motivation to move up.

But I still think it’s shitting on people to expect or accept constant recording of everything mundane thing while awaiting the exceptional [screw up]. Pilots are more powerful than Amazon warehouse workers but recording every breath, every whisper, ever fart is undoubtedly shit in a warehouse or a cockpit or an operating room.

Then again, the only way I could accept it is if everyone is recorded all the time and it was all public or at least FOIA able for many people. Especially the government and universities and Wall Street other wise it’s just a way to control and hang things over peoples heads.

As to the tipping grumpiness I grew up partly in the 3rd world where tipping 50 cents was a great tip and I’m cheap and didn’t/don’t make tech bro money. I found the ultimate solution was to just not eat out so much except for truly special occasions. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there too somewhere.

Unfortunately people will take recordings out of context, edit them, use unrelated pieces for other means (maybe the pilots shit-talked CEO who started pushing employees into contracting?) etc.

are you now aware that the server's means of sustenance comes out of those tips?

Define. What EXACTLY does a pilot need privacy for?

Do you have a voice recording of you doing your entire job, every day of your life?

There are software engineer jobs where you need to keep your camera on during work hours to show you are in your seat.

Yeah, but nobody applies for those.

The people posting on Reddit would disprove your point. Likely because they do not tell you about that upfront and say it is a small thing.

These jobs do not attract the best software engineers.

They could with sufficient pay.

I'm pretty sure any place doing that is not going to offer sufficient pay.

The intersection between employers who demand to film you being in a chair and employers who shower their employees with substantial lucre is the null set.

I just watched a youtube video on how a person looking for editing jobs had some pretty poor working conditions with terrible pay. A very controlling boss, asking him to edit on an old x86 macbook because he was told it was 'for creators'. The guy mentioned he a beast machine at home he could edit remotely and the person told him "do you want to edit?". The boss would not even provide him a mouse-he had to edit by trackpad.

He walked out around noon. The boss asked him to come back for an extra $20 that day.

I doubt the jobs where you don't enjoy any level of trust are the ones where you get paid well or get any kind of dignified treatment.

I recently saw a job ad for a JavaScript specialist where the position entailed having screenshots and keyboard + mouse tracking to monitor your working hours. It was a freelancer position, so the hire would handle taxes and health insurance, no equipment would be provided and working hours would start at 08:00 German time sharp for at least nine hours or until you "finish the daily tasks". Pay would however be for 189 hours per month, no compensation for sick leave/holidays/vacation, and you'd be paid via upwork.com (with you paying Upwork's fees) in US dollars.

What is your point? We were discussing when pilots should be expected to be recorded in the cockpit for privacy vs safety. I mentioned there are software engineer jobs where you have to keep the camera on all day.

There are jobs where you are expected to keep the camera and there are programmers who accept those work terms.

If my job involved taking the lives of hundreds of humans in my hands, then I would expect that, at least during the hours in which said lives are my responsibility.

IMHO surgical theatres should have permanent multi-perspective cameras recording everything for the same reason.

There you also have patient privacy to take into account.

Only if the patient consents (or their family if they are unable to give legal consent), otherwise no for patient privacy.

Patients are typically covered with a cloth, head do toe.

Hundreds of people don't die when I screw up.

My job does not involve direct responsibility for the immediate life-or-death of hundreds of lives.

This is the reality for a large number of truck drivers who bear a significantly lower responsibility.

No but I also don't have the lives of 300 people in my hands.

Pilots can have the lives of quite a lot more than that on their hands since an airplane makes for a great kinetic weapon. The pilots of KLM Flight 4805 took the lives of almost 600 people.

Many people do. Depends on the job.

I did when I worked retail, and while I worked food service.

No, but I'm also not driving hundreds of souls around near mach 1 strapped to 100k gallons of jet fuel. And when I've worked in government environments I had escorts watching my screen like a hawk the entire time.

Not to mention the tapes are only pulled if there's an incident. You could even have a little tamper seal on it to show if it's been downloaded. This is absurd.