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Employee refuses to download app that monitors location, says it got her fired
- type0 6y agodupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26791402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26791402
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- apples_oranges 6y agoWe need to stop building a world without trust. Always checking, ensuring, surveilling (,mining on a blockchain), this is anti-human and will only lead to unhappiness, burnout, depression. It's no way to live unless we want to be like the Borg eventually.
- trident5000 6y agoWhat does blockchain have to do with literally anything pertaining to this article.
- throwaway29303 6y agoI think they're referring to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26802874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26802874
- trident5000 6y agoBtc is a store of value more than a payment rail and others like monero or even the lightning network can be anonymous.
- mustafa_pasi 6y agoThe whole crypto space is about replacing trust-based systems with trust-less systems.
- trident5000 6y agoWho cares? Completing a trustless transaction is not parallel to someone tracking your physical location.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoLook past the surface of Bitcoin payments, and at the greater space of technologies around blockchains and cryptocurrencies. The core idea they are all based on is that you can provide mathematically provable distributed consensus if you're willing to jump through enough hoops. That you can build systems that can achieve and enforce agreements without any need to trust the participants. All you need is to trade enough electricity for it. And so the whole crypto space is currently trying to refactor every single aspect of our society to eliminate the need for trusting other people. The problem is, they're looking at it from the wrong end. The right way of looking at it is, interpersonal trust is a huge performance optimization. It's what allows societies to exist and cooperate without jumping through hoops or burning more electricity than a developed country just to send small amounts of money around. What the crypto space is explicitly trying to do is to eliminate the most important feature of our civilization.
- throwaway29303 6y agoYou're right but ironically the very same people that are now complaining about these measures were the same that enabled it in the first place. All for the sake of convenience. Pandora's jar was opened and there's really no way in sight to put its filth back and close it for good. And one of the worst parts is when this information can be used by people (nations, criminals, etc) for any reason.
- extradesgo 6y ago>”the very same people that are now complaining about these measures were the same that enabled it in the first place” Wage workers? No. That’s just false. I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to say but it’s wrong. This is just another appearance of the same class warfare that drives slavery. Working people didn’t ask for this any more than slaves asked for slavery.
- goatinaboat 6y agoWage workers? No. That’s just false. I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to say but it’s wrong. This is just another appearance of the same class warfare that drives slavery. Working people didn’t ask for this any more than slaves asked for slavery. I remember, because it was only a few years ago, companies would allocate anyone who needed one a BlackBerry. Any work calls would come to that device, you would use it for emails on the go etc, it was managed by the corporate IT department and when you weren't on call you could leave it in a drawer. It was very clearly "theirs" and could be treated as such. It actually was ordinary workers who said, hey, I would much prefer to have the company take over my own personal device for this, which I have paid for and pay all the bills for too, it would be soooo convenient not to carry two phones, and of course companies gleefully said yes. And nowadays if you want a "burner phone" for use at work, you pay for that yourself too! Congratulations everyone, we played ourselves. Well not me, I miss the BlackBerry days, and I said all this when BYOD was becoming fashionable too. But they still took my BlackBerry away and made it all but impossible to stay employed and not install their MDM crap on my own phone.
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- dandanua 6y agoUnfortunately, we've reached a no return point. The next natural stage will be the raise of fascist states. With mass surveillance, AI, and nuclear weapons it will be almost impossible to overthrow them.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoYou have overestimate that there is no overthrow of these. Geurilla war in Vietnam, Midle East, other have been fight best militarys with succeeding. But here we also have reason why we are needing for to keep gun rights, and for to end existing infringment (e.g. no restricting on automatics).
- iso1210 6y agoIts a reason you need to keep the people in your military against the totalitarianists. US police officers kill about 1000 people a year, guns don't seem to protect them.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoYes you are right on this. Policeman killing is random in most case, so not surprpse here. Also one may not be using gun against police; I am presuming that in rebelion one may, state monopoley on force is going out the window.
- iso1210 6y agoThe state has no monopoly on force. The US armed forces are made up of US citizens. They are sworn to defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. That could include a president and congress, it could include corporations, it could include Canada. The narrative of armed citizens operating in a structure to defend citizens and the constitution works fine if you don't have armed citizens operating in a structure to defend citizens and the constitution. If you lose hearts and minds of one group armed US citizens (the military), why is your group of armed citizens any more justified? If you don't lose it, why do you need the armaments?
- Gregoriy 6y agoI had a team of 10, two of them are remote, we recruted a third person, we work 40 hours a week, usually more or less flexible. We have recruted another person, after 6 month of work with him i have noticed some strange delays, like take too much time to respond etc, we work in pretty much relaxed environement so it was not visible very much. After a quick search i have found his freelance account and proposed him to do some job, he agreed and did so during his active working hours, double pay, how do i suppose counter that ?
- rambambram 6y agoExactly how you already did that. IANAL (although I studied law), but my take is you have proof for a case here.
- loloquwowndueo 6y agoFire him? :P
- Gregoriy 6y agoI see it as a fail at both sides, i mean we could find a solution before that last measure
- krisdol 6y agoHe’s not performing well at work and you found out without any extra surveillance. I mean you didn’t even need to find his freelance gig, it seems irrelevant to what you should do.
- cyberlurker 6y agoDoes he get his work done? Is he providing value? If yes, don’t worry about it.
- wdb 6y agoOr the employee does this work in its own time. Assuming he is employed full time.
- GuB-42 6y agoThat's what you get with larger organizations. But these large organization is what allows for the specialization and economies of scale that make up modern civilization. For example, if you go to some big box store and forget to make you pay for something, I don't know many people who will point out the mistake and pay their due. The same people will probably be more inclined to do so if the shop in question is a small shop and they know the owner personally, even more so if he is an actual friend. And the level of trust reflects that. Big box stores will monitor everything, because they know their customers can't be trusted, while friends will not even keep tabs. At the highest level, I don't know any country that trust their citizens when it comes to paying taxes, for good reason. There is an entire industry dedicated to more or less legal tax avoidance, opposed by an army of legislators and inspectors. We have lost trust long ago. I'd say the turning point is the invention of the lock, thousands of years ago. I mean, isn't the lock and its information counterpart, cryptography, a symbol of distrust? For me, it is, but it is also what allows us to be secure among people we don't know.
- spacemanmatt 6y agoBig box stores are also more likely to be associated with a lobbying group on their behalf, loss prevention scandals, and other things that deteriorate public trust.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoYou're right with the varying amounts of trust in different social structures, but recent developments in and adjacent to the crypto space are a whole new level of lack of trust. The country may not trust their citizens when it comes to paying taxes, but it's not an absolute lack of trust. They set up regulations outlining rules and punishments, back them with various enforcement mechanisms, and... they trust it's enough for vast majority of the citizens. They trust most people will be nudged towards paying the right amount of taxes - that's why they don't generally surveil every single transaction you're making. It's hard for a regular person to get on the IRS radar in a way other than interacting with government services in a weird way somehow. When they notice something suspicious, they will follow up, but the process set in the aforementioned laws is again very much trust-based, giving the suspect the ability to explain themselves at various stages, and not digging through one's entire life until late in the process. It's based on a reasonable assumption that most of the issues a country's IRS would flag are honest mistakes. Same with every other process in most (all?) societies. There are directions, nudges, deterrents. Not total surveillance. But the newest trends in technology businesses seem to desperately want to move us towards the latter.
- dalbasal 6y agoOne of the most important philosophers of enlightenment/industrial era was Jeremy Bentham... of utilitarian fame. He designed a building called a Panopticon, a design for a factory that allows many workers to be monitored closely by managers. He also thought it would make a good design for prisons, another interest areas. A lot of modern prisons resemble/derive from the Panopticon. We need to remember that not everything is a new problem. Digitisation creates new privacy avenues which can be violate or defend. The bigger picture often stays the same. Solving problems by exercising more rigorous control over workers... in ways they don't like. I think many HN-ers have a certain class blindness about these issues. A lot of jobs require urine tests, monitor employee's screens, motivate using cctv, etc. Some jobs actually require this. Often though, it's just a class thing. Urine tests for CS agents and warehouse workers. None for programmers.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoThe core difference that makes this new problem more worrying is, Panopticon only created a perception of being constantly watched. The managers/guards could see into every cell, but not all of them at the same time - but the workers/prisoners couldn't know if they're being watched at any given moment, so they had to assume they were. As bad as it is, it's still better than actually being constantly watched.
- dalbasal 6y agoWell... we'll see. It's not the first time for "actually being constantly watched" either. eg stazi/etc. There is somewhat of a distinction between spying to sell you papmers and spying to maintain political power/stability. The latter can get bad fast. Ad businesses can be creepy, but their motivation is mostly just to sell you stuff. In both cases, it doesn't feel great at first... but you do get used to it. Spying to make you sell pampers... that can go either way. Whatever lock-in powers Apple or FB wield... bosses have more power over employees than retailers over consumers. Add privacy belligerence to labour relations... third party ecosystems. don't panic.
- cedricgle 6y agoI would like to see the employer reaction if someone has a Librem phone or any non Android/iOS mobile. Yet it's +800$ for this short satisfaction.
- dvdkhlng 6y agoYou can get this sort of satisfaction for much less money. Try a Volla phone [1] or a KaiOS based phone [2]. That's always funny when some services assume that just having an iOS or Android App (and no equivalent web-page) is enough to cater to everyone. Especially in the corona-virus crisis it will prove interesting whether some mandated "contact tracing" or "vaccination pass" style Apps are going to effectively turn into an Android/iOS Smartphone requirement for everyday life. In Germany it's e.g. already impossible to use the DHL parcel receival stations without Android/iOS. Loss of some ticket options for public transport also seems to be on the horizon. Also forget about car- and bike-sharing. Also some banks try to force you to install their own proprietary TFA app for online payment (even if you just use your credit card in an online shop). [1] https://volla.online/en/index.html https://volla.online/en/index.html [2] https://sites.google.com/view/bananahackers/devices/nokia-8110-4g https://sites.google.com/view/bananahackers/devices/nokia-81...
- martin_a 6y agoIs the DHL app really necessary or can you fallback to SMS? Got an Android, so no problem for me, but I'm wondering...
- leethargo 6y agoIt wasn't necessary as of some months ago. I don't have a smart phone and at first they would send a SMS with TAN, but now they switched to sending an email with the TAN.
- dvdkhlng 6y agoThere may be some grandfathering of old accounts: accounts that have email notification enabled, can still access the Packstation using mTAN transmitted by email. However, once the email notification is disabled, there seems to be no way to re-enable it (and maybe it is disabled per default for new accounts) [1] [1] https://www.giga.de/tipp/dhl-mtan-anfordern-ohne-handy-das-sollte-man-wissen/ https://www.giga.de/tipp/dhl-mtan-anfordern-ohne-handy-das-s...
- taotau 6y agoIm not qualified to comment on the sociopolitical implications of this. I would prefer if things had not got to this stage but I understand the good and bad uses of such information. My personal solution is to obfuscate my online data. I have many disparate identities online which I think makes it a bit harder to be targeted directly. I know that a concerted attack could easily tie my data together but I think I am not significant enough for anyone to bother with me. As a result I see very generic advertising. Simple solution to this specific issue is to get a cheap second phone and drop the app on that. Leave it at work or in the car turned off when you are off the clock. What I am curious about is how valuable is this sort of GPS data specifically. Especially for lower socio economic people, who for the time being seem to be the ones that are targeted with this sort of pervasive monitoring. I’m at a loss for actual valuable ideas to do with a knowledge of poor peoples movements that I couldn’t get from some generic anonymous socio economic data.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoThat's not a solution though, that's working around the symptoms. The solution would be to ban these practices on a federal level. There is no value in this GPS data as such, it's the techy equivalent of clocking in- and out - the fear from the employer is that the employee is skipping out on work.
- novaRom 6y agoEven with multiple identities your device/browser fingerprints are unique. This data is probably regularly shared between large online players. They certainly know your real identity and that you try to obfuscate your online data.
- rootsudo 6y agoThe more trust you put into an app, the more easier it is to deceive it. Very simple to do GPS spoofing, yet, we implicitly trust end user devices to be truthful.
- Gustomaximus 6y agoI'm mixed on this. Sometimes this stuff is good for planning and productivity, but it's also so open to treat humans like animals e.g next they'll update motion detection to make sure they weren't still for more than 3 min and so on. Government really needs to regulate this to find a balance between reasonable and not to protect those that don't have easy alternate employment options. Also generally, if a company wants this they should supply the device and data. Otherwise they are offloading cost to workers.
- test_alpha 6y agoWell I don't see any problem here and anyway it's clearly out of our hands, they're a private company. Right?
- zecg 6y agoGood for her. Though, a more fun way to quit would be to install the app, feed it the same spoofed location 24/7 putting you right in the middle of your workplace and just never show up again.
- patrakov 6y agoTracking by itself is bad. But the request to install the tracker on the personal phone, instead of a dedicated device, is completely unacceptable.
- karlkloss 6y agoThat would be totally illegal in Germany, and most of the EU. Not only the employee tracking and forcing them to install anything on their private devices, but also the data collection and not disclosing what is collected, where, and how long, and not implementing an automatic deletion.
- varispeed 6y agoHere in the UK government introduced zero rights employment just few days ago and that would be totally legal here.
- yladiz 6y agoAs someone not from the UK: What is zero rights employment, and how is it different than before?
- jsty 6y agoIt's not a special employment status. As a contractor in the UK you have fewer rights (pensions, notice periods, unfair dismissal, etc.) than an employee, but used to have not-inconsiderable tax benefits to trade off against this. Thanks to HMRC reforms known as IR35, a lot of contractors are now considered akin to "disguised employees" and taxed as such - thus being taxed like an employee without the requisite legal benefits.
- nmeofthestate 6y agoContractors have a tendency to frame the gradual clamping down on their lucrative tax loopholes in hyperbolic self-pitying ways like this. Pretty savvy I guess.
- regularfry 6y agoThe net result is not so much that the loopholes have gone away, but that the contracts have. Employers are refusing to engage with the new IR35 system rather than risk getting on the wrong side of HMRC.
- drevil-v2 6y agoHow is this any different to clocking in manually at your workplace? A lot of companies ask their employees to clock in and out at a terminal when they enter the office. For roster adherence and for payroll. The article clearly states it only starts tracking when the employee enters a specific geo-fence. In a Covid world with remote collaboration between teams something like this sounds perfectly reasonable. How else would a company know for certain that the employee who was supposed to clean a client premise actually went there?
- colechristensen 6y agoYeah a time clock isn’t a spy in your pocket 24/7. If you aren’t paying for a separate work phone you can straight up fuck off with any requests for things i do with my phone, especially for the purposes of tracking my location.
- feanaro 6y agoThrough trust and through the client complaining that no one showed up? In other words, how did the world ever work before smartphones?
- christophilus 6y agoManually clocking in at your workplace has no way of accidentally leaking your contacts list or tracking where you were last night or just taking up space on your phone that you own. You want me to install crap ware on my personal property? Not a chance. You give me a phone, and I’m marginally more fine with it.
- simlan 6y agoDo you take the GPS enabled terminal from work home ? Do you have the terminal with you at night and on the weekends?
- alexf95 6y ago> How else would a company know for certain that the employee who was supposed to clean a client premise actually went there? Well this is the whole point. You have to trust your employees to some degree with this. Also you would totally notice someone not doing what they are supposed to do at some point, simply because their work would pile up otherwise. You can also have daily/weekly meetings to check on their progress to make sure they are doing their work.
- pdkl95 6y agohttps://www.ladyada.net/make/wavebubble/ https://www.ladyada.net/make/wavebubble/ >> This website details the design and construction Wave Bubble: a self-tuning, wide-bandwidth portable RF jammer. The device is lightweight and small for easy camouflaging: it is the size of a pack of cigarettes. >> An internal lithium-ion battery provides up to 2 hours of jamming (two bands, such as cell) or 4 hours (single band, such as cordless phone, GPS, WiFi, bluetooth, etc). The battery is rechargeable via a mini-USB connector or 4mm DC jack (a common size). >> Output power is .1W (high bands) and .3W (low bands). Effective range is approximately 20' radius with well-tuned antennas. Obviously jamming GPS is not really a solution to this problem. However, as hostile use of GPS grows, building something like a Wave Bubble seems increasingly useful.
- dijit 6y agoBe very careful, jamming certain things is absolutely illegal in some countries.
- colechristensen 6y agoOperating radio jammers is likely to get you a $20,000 fine the first time they catch you, and if they get a hint of your activity, the FCC will absolutely start hunting for you.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoIn what maner are they "hunting" some person who is use only on ocasion in locations not fixed? I think these rule are wrong. Some person who is putting up jammer with a range extent only for his propertey should not be in criming.
- colechristensen 6y agoThey have vans with lots of radio equipment which they will drive around to find you. You’re not allowed to interfere with radio resources which the public owns, even for someone else on your property. Some hotels have gotten fined for interfering with wifi hotspots for example. You’ll be hard pressed to build a jammer which is loud enough to interfere with signals just on your property and not interfere outside or be detectable. You also don’t own the sky above your land and can’t take away radio spectrum from aircraft, etc.
- HenryBemis 6y agoPasting my comment from the same piece of news discussed in HN yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26791402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26791402 ------------------ As Meja sang some years back: it's all about the money (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ)(cute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ)(cute song) Logbooks: someone needs to distribute them, collect them, read them, transfer the (many many many) written lines to a computer, validate the signature samples/writing style, etc. etc. An app that automates that in 2 mins is so much better. A solution could be: 1) give each employee a (corporate) cheap $100 android phone, 2) configure these to allow only 1-2 apps to 'escape' to the internet so the bandwidth is not wasted on updates or browsing, 3) provide a 1GB per year data plan, 4) ask them to switch on right before entering the 'site' and switch off right when they leave the 'site' 5) give them a monthly $5 subsidy to keep it charged.
- loloquwowndueo 6y ago“ Logbooks: someone needs to distribute them, collect them, read them, transfer the (many many many) written lines to a computer, validate the signature samples/writing style, etc. etc.” Welcome to the 21st century where time clocks that can send data to a computer in real time exist. Just scan your thumb and all the data is there. No primitive transcribing by hand. Geez what are you going to suggest next, faxing the records around? :)
- HenryBemis 6y agoHeh.. I didn't copy the comment I was responding to!! I was (clearly?) making a point against logbooks, thus stating the disadvantages of logbooks vs the advantages and simplicity (respecting privacy) of modern technology.
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoIs there any scientific evidence that this kind of excessive cleaning had any impact on COVID? What was the cost-benefit-analysis, how many years of life were saved per $, and how does that compare to other health interventions? If we just banned junk food at these schools, but let COVID run rampant (the number of children and teenagers dead from COVID is essentially statistical noise), would we have improved health in the long-run? My impression is that many of these cleaners realised they had a 'bullshit job' and were slacking off or not actually at the premises, particularly if the work was done after-hours. I think the bigger issue here is that we need to unwind all of these COVID distortions and get back to normal.
- yoz-y 6y ago> I think the bigger issue here is that we need to unwind all of these COVID distortions and get back to normal. At >110% ICU occupancy (and >150% in my city), let's not yet.
- loloquwowndueo 6y agoWay to deflect the actual issue. The things you mention can be solved by actual supervision (you know, a supervisor doing their job) and old-fashioned time clock. The issue here is expecting the employee to install a spying app on their personal phone. If it’s that important, they should give the employee a work phone with the app.
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoIts not economically realistic to expect physical supervision, when this kind of cleaning work is typically fully distributed across multiple sites. As part of the contract a worker would probably drive to a school at 5pm, clean it for a few hours, drive home. Some workers probably realised that there was no one actually validating their work, and didn't show up or only 'worked' for a short period of time. Its unreasonable to provide a work phone which then comes with a lot of corporate overhead and device management, for something which is probably just a temporary contract. It seems completely reasonable to agree to location tracking as part of these jobs, since it makes the management and supervision process more efficient. Workers can buy cheap Android phones and run them on WiFi if they wish to separate their work device from their personal device.
- nkrisc 6y agoWhat if she didn’t own a smartphone? I guess she’d be fired for that too?
- paxys 6y agoWhen I started my last job (decently large corp) there was a long onboarding session for mobile device setup. Email, Skype, a dozen other internal apps, 2FA authenticator, SSO, device profiles, remote locking/erase, certificates — the whole deal. There was even some weird internal app store. I asked them where I could get my company phone to set up all this, and they replied no, you just use your personal phone. I have never been more amused/horrified than at that moment. I eventually escalated a few levels and was able to get them to buy me one, but I was also presumably the first person who asked so strongly.
- m_mueller 6y agopeople seem to be way too accepting of this stuff nowadays. seems to me as soon as BYOD setups got popular, companies immediately used it to push infrastructure cost onto their employees.
- izacus 6y agoThis is where Android massively outclasses iOS: it separates all company data in an isolated profile, has a separate location switch for work apps, has a separate notification switch for work apps and doesn't allow access to your private data. You can easily disable the whole setup yourself (and company doesn't control it) which easily makes notifications go away whenever.
- ekianjo 6y agoTell yout employer you only have a featureless phone. No apps for it. Problem solved.