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Comment by alexhawdon | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine is considering starting a cleaning company and I engaged in some out-of-the-box thinking, I'd be interested to hear HNs views on the idea:

Cleaners that CCTV themselves.

It could be done with something as simple as a low-cost smartphone worn around the neck, or in the future something more sophisticated like Google Glass.

Lots of potential issues (would the cleaners accept this condition? would clients be happy to have a video of their house sat on a server?) but it's a potential solution to the trust issues inherent in the business - two main ones being 'is my cleaner dipping into petty cash' and 'is my cleaner actually cleaning'.

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My $0.02 - this might be the wrong way to address the 2 biggest risks (cleaners stealing, cleaners not working). For me, by drawing so much attention to these items you're basically saying "we don't really trust the cleaners, and neither should you, so let's monitor them".

And then there's the question of who actually watches the video? The customer = more work for them. You guys = not super scalable.

What about privacy? What if the smartphone captures something super sensitive out on someone's desk (e.g. a major contract)?

The final point is that your competitors could just say "Ya, we actually just hire good, trustworthy cleaners so we don't have to bother with spying on them (and neither do you). Here are 10 customer testimonials that proves this. Those spying guys probably just hire really shady people and need the spying to keep them in line."

All just my $0.02 - take what you want! :)

Doesn't sound hard to steal, even if they're broadcasting themselves.

> low-cost smartphone worn around the neck, or in the future something more sophisticated like Google Glass

Go-Pro chest mount would be comfortable, and I believe you can stream with the black model.

If this is the direction we are heading in, I despair.

You're addressing a problem that largely doesn't exist at scale.

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