Your boss could soon be able to keep tabs on you even when you're out at lunch. Photo: Linda Nylind
If you hear rumours that your bosses are planning to sniff you in the coming weeks, you might be relieved to hear that it's not necessarily anything to do with whether or not you forgot to shower.
More likely they are trying to keep tabs on you via the Social Network Integrated Friend Finder (Sniff), a new form of publicly accessible positioning software that uses your mobile phone signal to pinpoint your whereabouts on a map.
Sniff is due to be launched in the UK later this month and its manufacturers, Useful Networks, claim its use will primarily be social, eliminating the need for those pesky "Where r u" text messages. But the potential for bosses to use the service to track their employees' whereabouts while out of the office is obvious.
You might think this sounds far-fetched, but last year the South African mobile phone company Vodacom hit the headlines for tracking an employee via her mobile phone signal in a dismissal case. Worse still, the German supermarket chain Lidl was last week accused of hiring private detectives to monitor the toilet breaks and private conversations of its staff.
New South Wales in Australia has legislation specifically prohibiting employers from carrying out surveillance on employees without their knowledge. In the UK, however, the law is not so clear; the Human Rights Act respects various rights of the individual, including that of privacy. However, in the workplace most of these rights are subject to limitation if an employer can show that the infringements are necessary to protect others.
Is surveillance in the workplace acceptable practice, or is it just another erosion of our civil liberties? Have you ever been spied on at work? Or even helped to spy on someone else? We'd love to hear your stories.
