I personally think it’s horrible. I think humans must maintain a somewhat loose inefficient environment and process to remain sane. But for those who don’t share my views, introducing such systems is an easy sell.

I remember the first time I came across it, I saw a project that was going to install detailed monitoring on call centre workers PCs.

In the business case for the software they actually put a financial benefit of this system as something like reduced employee absence due to them being better managed!

There didn't seem to be any acknowledgement that the employees might find the implicit lack of trust involved in installing this kind of software a problem.

the current drivers are just a temp solution to this end goal.

This is literally true, managers refer to workers as "resources". A resource is something that you use up and then discard. At least they are in their own way being honest about it.

I refer to managers as belonging to one or a mix of the "slave trader", "parasitic" or "demonic" classes. In my 10+ years in this profession, I am yet to come across a "manager" who doesn't fall under this categorization.

We have major class issues.

I mean the failure of empathy and respect.

Think about the experience of having a camera pointing at you all the time that you work, potentially recording and/or allowing unknown people to observe you, with the complete loss of privacy that implies. And the loss of control that comes with the knowledge that the system can admonish you at any moment, possibly without any human input, for the smallest perceived infraction.

Combine that with the employment insecurity that comes with this kind of job and you get the potential for an extremely stressful and abusive working environment.

Would you really tolerate this level of surveillance? Pre-pandemic I worked in an office too and this is in no way equivalent to being in a workspace with a few colleagues. Neither is it comparable to gps vehicle tracking or a cab radio/phone. This is several levels past that.

2. Windows and cameras are very different things, one can record, the other can't. One is two-way, the other is not.