I don’t agree. Company surveillance of workers is very stressful and invasive and saying “it’s their laptop” isnt good enough. The worksite of most workers is theirs too, so does that mean it’s okay to put microphones in the break rooms and cameras tracking bathroom breaks? I don’t mean legal, I mean morally.
I don’t want a company microphone listening on my family conversations in the distance
For example, teams/zoom call? Go nuts. Screen shots of laptop screen. Go for it. Chat. Fine. Listening in to me jacking off to dwarf porn? Not cool.
I still see it as mostly useless. And I am saying this as a person, who worked at a place that had 'bathroom break' policy. The most annoying thing about it.. it was used as a tool to get rid of people management did not like.
Indeed. These machines should not have a built-in microphone. How do you really know if it is not listening? Cameras can at least be covered.
It is possible to do this? Also, would it not be very illegal?
Yes. Intrusion detection software will want to know everything about the network and peers.
> Also, would it not be very illegal?
You've likely already agreed to let your employer and their equipment do whatever they want it to do.
Depends on the jurisdiction. In the EU, very much so.
A ruling from a few years ago, and regulations are only getting tighter ( this was pre-GDPR): https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/sep/05/romanian-chat-me...
In my case it helps that my current boss is not into simple metrics and goes out of his way to be fair and transparent, but not everyone is so lucky. I still remember one of previous bosses, who wanted me to track average processed cases and wanted to make sure they did not know what is being measured. What I quickly learned is that people are not idiots and figure out what is being rewarded even if they are not explicitly told.