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Your point about having video evidence brings up an interesting question for me, how does the HN community generally feel about pervasive workplace surveillance

Your point about having video evidence brings up an interesting question for me, how does the HN community generally feel about pervasive workplace surveillance? It seems based on some of the articles I've read about harassment, that many times people will only feel comfortable coming forward when they have hard evidence such as texts, emails, video, etc against the perpetrators. Seeing as we, in the US at least, seem to be fairly comfortable with having a pervasive surveillance state(lets ignore for a second whether this is rational, I personally believe the pendulum has swung way too far to the side of surveillance) due to the threat of terrorism, maybe we should also embrace this in our professional lives. I personally think harassment in the workplace probably affects the day to day lives of more Americans than terrorism does. Is it time to institute these kinds of surveillance practices in the workplace? Maybe have 24 hour video/audio surveillance at work, disallow off work socializing between employees holding differing levels of seniority, only allow approved, and recorded, methods of communication? For the record, I'm not sure how I would feel about such things, I'm leaning towards it being fraught with all sorts of negative unintended consequences, so if its a stupid idea please let me know, I'm simply curious to hear some opinions. Edited for clarity.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
harrisi 9y ago
I think having constant surveillance can have a negative impact on work life. I know that when discussions moved to Slack at my work place there was a very different way to communicate due to us knowing our conversations may be read. Not that there were any instances of harassment, but sometimes it can be relieving to tell a coworker that your boss is a dick. It can help get feelings out before they build up. I do see some value in surveillance, such as the GP's instance (whether or not it's true -- it's a reasonably plausible story). I, however, don't think that constant surveillance that upper management has free reign over is good. I did have an idea about this. Is there a way to have a file (such as video/audio) encrypted in such a way that it can only be decrypted with multiple keys? In GP's case, GP and the employee that made the accusation? That way you can still feel safe(-ish) that your small slacking off won't risk your job, while allowing for evidence in serious situations such as GP's.
- seanp2k2 9y ago
  There's also a difference between saving different levels of stuff within Slack. It can go all the way to saving everything including private channels and direct messages: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/220548947-Apply-for-Compliance-Exports https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/220548947-Apply-for... or just for channels: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/203457187-Custom-message-and-file-retention https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/203457187-Custom-me... Make sure you know who's reading your DMs if you use Slack to e.g. complain about your manager. As someone able to make these decisions, make sure you know who has access and audit that. The story of the manager firing someone for performance reasons when the real reason is that they overheard something they didn't like is as old as the hills.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

harrisi 9y ago

I think having constant surveillance can have a negative impact on work life. I know that when discussions moved to Slack at my work place there was a very different way to communicate due to us knowing our conversations may be read. Not that there were any instances of harassment, but sometimes it can be relieving to tell a coworker that your boss is a dick. It can help get feelings out before they build up. I do see some value in surveillance, such as the GP's instance (whether or not it's true -- it's a reasonably plausible story). I, however, don't think that constant surveillance that upper management has free reign over is good. I did have an idea about this. Is there a way to have a file (such as video/audio) encrypted in such a way that it can only be decrypted with multiple keys? In GP's case, GP and the employee that made the accusation? That way you can still feel safe(-ish) that your small slacking off won't risk your job, while allowing for evidence in serious situations such as GP's.

seanp2k2 9y ago
There's also a difference between saving different levels of stuff within Slack. It can go all the way to saving everything including private channels and direct messages: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/220548947-Apply-for-Compliance-Exports https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/220548947-Apply-for... or just for channels: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/203457187-Custom-message-and-file-retention https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/203457187-Custom-me... Make sure you know who's reading your DMs if you use Slack to e.g. complain about your manager. As someone able to make these decisions, make sure you know who has access and audit that. The story of the manager firing someone for performance reasons when the real reason is that they overheard something they didn't like is as old as the hills.