Right now there is a packaged pump system on a pallet in the basement that's been sitting around for two months that they'll install... someday. People have been getting stuck in the elevator for years, looks like they'll replace them over a year and a half. Replacing the fire alarm took a good part of the year. You can wait for a month for the paint shop to show up and it takes most of a week to do a job.
We had a security panic last fall after it went down in Gaza. It used to be you could go to a sports game and bring a camera bag but no more. Security cameras appeared over the engineering school instantly one weekend, like mushrooms popping up after a rain. I'd never seen any blue collar job get done quickly like that before.
Of course security cameras are easy to install because all you need to do is run an Ethernet cable to the nearest PoE switch, our comrades in the PRC have made it so easy because they wanted it to be easy for themselves so it's amazing how much camera you can get for a low price. Also security has always been pretty lax, I am amazed to go through the loading dock and seeing a $250,000 fiber laser in a crate in a place that's totally unsupervised.
It's like that. Metrics, checking if the employee is working - this is all illegal in Europe. Even what Microsoft do with the office (offering detailed insight into the accounts) can't be used under European legislation. Just to make a point in my thinking.
If surveillance, then at work. No one has the right to tell me what I do in my home, even if I get paid for it.
I'm happy, that it won't happen. Not now and not soon. -> In Europe. I can say that with very confidence. If someone want to change that, democracy of European people will win.
I answered your question. If surveillance then only in office, never ever in my home. No matter what. I also wouldn't work from home in the case surveillance is mandatory for a certain employer
No, with WFH the question is if you'll accept a WHF employer that practices it, or if you'll instead work for one that doesn't.
* Provided you trust the one that claims they do.
The original question doesn't need an asterisk so it may be perceived negatively. My point is that you may never know even if there's a law for it, unless you actually hear companies getting busted left and right, there's a fair chance that it is happening in your blind spot. If everything is going smooth, you may want to decide on your answer to that question.
For WHF, if they don't ask you to install corporate remote management/spyware crap, then you do know.
It's not like they'll hack into your laptop.
Btw, something rarely mentioned: not all employers are corporate behemoths with busy bodies in management constantly envisioning new ways to crap on developers.
There are startups with no surveillance and IT red tape, and tons of smaller employers without the surveillance, office politics, bureucracy, and general bullshit.