Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by squarefoot on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @04:05PM (#25281624)

This. And not just two phones but two laptops as well, unless the employer forbids bringing a personal one at work (which would be a reason to dump them in my case). Leave work stuff to work hardware and never ever use company assets for anything personal. A friend of mine who works for a big multinational telco (unrelated to Google) installed an open source tool on his company laptop; when he connected back on the corporate network, that tool got automatically deleted in a matter of minutes because it wasn't allowed for some reason and he got a notice about it. I can't recall the software used to keep control of corporate laptops, but according to what I heard from him it's widely used around and it catches everything: sites visited, software installs and runs, time spent working, screenshots, etc.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by jldugger on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @07:57PM (#25283925)

Why would you bring a personal laptop to work?

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by benhurmarcel on Thursday December 03, 2020 @04:25AM (#25287167)

Sometimes your work computer is so locked down that some work tasks are made much easier by having a machine you have full access to.

For example we needed to program an Arduino-type board, but that's not possible with our work laptops (no admin rights, USB ports disabled, etc); we never found a solution other than a personal laptop. Or a colleague needed to run a supplier's simulation tool that needed admin rights, and couldn't get an exception fast enough. Or you need to run a Linux tool.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by jldugger on Friday December 04, 2020 @12:53PM (#25305477)

> Sometimes your work computer is so locked down that some work tasks are made much easier by having a machine you have full access to.

This is not very persuasive. What you really have there is two work laptops.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by sneak on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:46AM (#25285825)

I sometimes need to do time critical things, or use sites or services, and I'm never giving personal credentials of any kind to client/employer hardware.

My personal laptop comes everywhere with me. Doesn't yours?

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by jldugger on Friday December 04, 2020 @12:54PM (#25305485)

Nope. I find the personal phone sufficient. If corporate IT wants to know when I'm browsing linkedin, im fine with that.

Also, corporate has given itself the right to search any and all devices on me while at work, so that's double incentive to leave the home laptop at home.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by morganw on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @09:02PM (#25284389)

In case you need to do something personal that can't wait until you get home. More of an issue with a longer commute. Might have to pop down to a local coffee shop or use the personal phone's hotspot to avoid using corp net.

I've had to check an account while at work to deal with my kid attempting to pay college tuition with one of my credit cards. Also looked up records so he could call the DMV to rectify something. Yeah, sometimes they're things that can wait a day, but a break from bug hunting can be nice.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by jen729w on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:34AM (#25285748)

It’s this sort of thing that makes me really appreciate my cell-connected personal iPad, with keyboard cover. It’s a “personal laptop” in 50% of the volume that I can ~always have with me.

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