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> surveillance is here to stay in the United States. Europe has very strict rules about surveiling employees. Example: In Austria we are not allowed to use so

> surveillance is here to stay in the United States. Europe has very strict rules about surveiling employees. Example: In Austria we are not allowed to use some of the functions that Azure-AD joined computers would be capable of because employers _might_ push remote control software the user hasn't agreed to

oneplane 3y ago
Same here. Employers can't even look inside user's mailboxes because there is no guarantee that it doesn't contain anything personal. Even if the company has a rule that you're not allowed to use it for personal things, the law supersedes that and you still can't do it willy nilly.
- josefx 3y ago
  > Even if the company has a rule that you're not allowed to use it for personal things, the law supersedes that and you still can't do it willy nilly. Companies are not homogeneous blocks of matter and there is always information some people at the company may need to know that others have no business dealing with. Tax, banking and health related information are some of the things that I can think of that would be shared on a need to know basis with people at work and have no business to be seen by people outside of the intended audience.
  - krageon 3y ago
    Health related information may absolutely not be shared, and doesn't need to be.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Employer don't even get diagnosis behind sick leave. Not sure how work accidents are treated in that regard so.
    - josefx 3y ago
      Honestly I wasn't sure how much that point applied. However with people that suffer chronic illnesses or disabilities that require special consideration I would be surprised if it was always possible to adequately communicate those needs without also mentioning information that the employee might not want to share publicly.
      - krageon 3y ago
        You can communicate special needs (e.g. "do not put this person in a loud room"), but not health information (e.g. "this person has epilepsy"). I struggle to think a special consideration a person could need that you could not just articulate instead of whatever medical issue they have (at least it has never come up for me).
  - hbs18 3y ago
    > Tax, banking and health related information are some of the things that I can think of that would be shared on a need to know basis with people at work and have no business to be seen by people outside of the intended audience. I am against workplace surveillance, but why would people receive this information to their work email address?
    - Keirmot 3y ago
      Why would HR receive my information?
      - hbs18 3y ago
        My bad, I misunderstood the above comment.
- bennyelv 3y ago
  I don't think this is correct - even under the GDPR. If the company has good reason to look inside someone's mailbox (I don't think the bar for that is particularly high for a company email account) then any personal data they encounter would be being processed under "legitimate interest" as long as they don't do anything unnecessary with it in order to achieve whatever it was they were doing.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Tue bar is actually quite high. Teo things can block it: if there is a workers council, it has to approve surveillance of an employees use of IT systems. That surveillance can only be target to specific, named users and for specific purposes, almost like a mini search warrant. If there is no workers council, at the latest stage a court will have a very, very close look at what isbpresented as evidence. The middle ground is an affected employee's lawyer and the employer. Result being, that kind of comms / IT surveillance is basically never happeneing. Which is a very, very good thing!
    - bennyelv 3y ago
      You need to be specific about what legal jurisdiction you're talking about here then - the world is a very big place and different laws apply. I'm not aware of any EU wide laws that prevent what you're talking about here. In the UK an employment contract will state that the employer can monitor your activity if they need to and this is completely legal. Source: https://www.gov.uk/monitoring-work-workers-rights https://www.gov.uk/monitoring-work-workers-rights In some countries (Germany springs to mind) there are much stricter rules. A blanket statement like the one you've made here is not correct unless you're being very specific about where you're talking about.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Germany it is, should have mentioned that.
  - abwizz 3y ago
    this was way before gdpr. more like employee rights. employer cant just come by and snoop throu your drawers either.
jupp0r 3y ago
Germany famously just passed legislation that forces employers to record working hours for all employees.
- netrus 3y ago
  The employer must not under-record the time worked - no one forces them to track the duration of breaks.
- darkwater 3y ago
  It must akin to the Spanish similar regulation I guess, but the idea is to force employers recognize and pay extra worked hours, not to spy on the employees.
- moooo99 3y ago
  That is a non-issue regarding privacy and the intention is to ensure compliance with employee protection laws capping the maximum weekly working time. You write down when you started working and you write down when you stop. Some employers automatically subtract your legally required break time, some want you to enter it manually.
  - notyourwork 3y ago
    Is there a concept equivalent to US, salary employee? If so what are they expected to work?
    - Swizec 3y ago
      (I’m from Europe, have lived in US the past 8 years) > Is there a concept equivalent to US, salary employee? Yes. It’s called full-time employee. This encompasses anyone and everyone who does not work as an independent contractor. > If so what are they expected to work? 40 hours per week. With mandated minimum lunch time and breaks, paid minimum vacation, paid medical leave, paid maternity/paternity, govt mandated lunch allowance, govt mandated transportation allowance based on commute distance, and many other “perks” that US companies use as negotiation tactics. If you work more than 40 hours per week, you can request overtime pay. Many employees waive the overtime thing for various reasons. In some industries because they’re exploited (restaurants and such), in other industries because they’re Mission Driven and want to work more (startups and such). The law is there to protect you, but in practiceit comes down to your relationship with your boss. edit: Personally, I don’t like this paternalistic/maternalistic attitude from either approach (as laws or as perks). Just pay me a shitload of money and let me figure out the rest. I’m old enough to buy my own lunch thank you.
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
As a foreign developer living in Austria I'd like to offer a counter perspective: that might be why Austria, even in the tech scene has some of the lowest and least flexibly WFH possibilities I've ever seen in any EU job market: so the bosses can keep a close eye on you at the office, because they can't via SW. Every job I applied to, even the most liberal ones mandates at least 2 day per week at the office in the best case, with some SW companies having max 1 day per week WFH because "we're more efficient at the office" lol. Every time I ask at an interview if they let me work 100% from home, so I don't waste 2h/day commuting, they look at me like I asked them to let me f*ck their mom. Also, many Austrian companies keep rigid track of your time and breaks at the office via electronic card punch in/out systems which are a government mandated legalized forms of workplace surveillance, meaning I have to spend 8h per day at the office regardless of my work being done in 5 and unable to do anything remotely productive for the remaining 3 because my brain is fried, while some companies even make you punch out for coffee breaks so you're not taking a break on your employer's dime, meaning you need to spend even more time at the office what's beyond your legal allowed 30 min lunch break which is also not included in your 8h closely-recorded workday. So IMHO, it's not all as progresive as you make it sound. It feels like an archaic system designed to keep unionized factory workers strictly in line to their mandated 30 min lunch breaks and making sure no overtime occurs on their shift, but is severely out of place in the world of digital knowledge work where it's used in some companies to keep employees at the office glued for 8 hours to their chairs.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Are you paid by the hour? Any job I've ever had with such rigid time tracking requirements was a hourly paid position. This sort of thing backfires on the employer in my opinion. It's quite easy to stretch a task to fill 8 hours if you have to be there anyway. But maybe you'd be happy to clock out after 5 hours one day and take a few extra unpaid hours for yourself. If your work is done, the employer should be happy to save a little money and let you do that.
  - Haemm0r 3y ago
    Quite sure he is. Usually All-In contracts don't log their time in Austria.

oneplane 3y ago

Same here. Employers can't even look inside user's mailboxes because there is no guarantee that it doesn't contain anything personal. Even if the company has a rule that you're not allowed to use it for personal things, the law supersedes that and you still can't do it willy nilly.

josefx 3y ago
> Even if the company has a rule that you're not allowed to use it for personal things, the law supersedes that and you still can't do it willy nilly. Companies are not homogeneous blocks of matter and there is always information some people at the company may need to know that others have no business dealing with. Tax, banking and health related information are some of the things that I can think of that would be shared on a need to know basis with people at work and have no business to be seen by people outside of the intended audience.
- krageon 3y ago
  Health related information may absolutely not be shared, and doesn't need to be.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Employer don't even get diagnosis behind sick leave. Not sure how work accidents are treated in that regard so.
  - josefx 3y ago
    Honestly I wasn't sure how much that point applied. However with people that suffer chronic illnesses or disabilities that require special consideration I would be surprised if it was always possible to adequately communicate those needs without also mentioning information that the employee might not want to share publicly.
    - krageon 3y ago
      You can communicate special needs (e.g. "do not put this person in a loud room"), but not health information (e.g. "this person has epilepsy"). I struggle to think a special consideration a person could need that you could not just articulate instead of whatever medical issue they have (at least it has never come up for me).
- hbs18 3y ago
  > Tax, banking and health related information are some of the things that I can think of that would be shared on a need to know basis with people at work and have no business to be seen by people outside of the intended audience. I am against workplace surveillance, but why would people receive this information to their work email address?
  - Keirmot 3y ago
    Why would HR receive my information?
    - hbs18 3y ago
      My bad, I misunderstood the above comment.
bennyelv 3y ago
I don't think this is correct - even under the GDPR. If the company has good reason to look inside someone's mailbox (I don't think the bar for that is particularly high for a company email account) then any personal data they encounter would be being processed under "legitimate interest" as long as they don't do anything unnecessary with it in order to achieve whatever it was they were doing.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Tue bar is actually quite high. Teo things can block it: if there is a workers council, it has to approve surveillance of an employees use of IT systems. That surveillance can only be target to specific, named users and for specific purposes, almost like a mini search warrant. If there is no workers council, at the latest stage a court will have a very, very close look at what isbpresented as evidence. The middle ground is an affected employee's lawyer and the employer. Result being, that kind of comms / IT surveillance is basically never happeneing. Which is a very, very good thing!
  - bennyelv 3y ago
    You need to be specific about what legal jurisdiction you're talking about here then - the world is a very big place and different laws apply. I'm not aware of any EU wide laws that prevent what you're talking about here. In the UK an employment contract will state that the employer can monitor your activity if they need to and this is completely legal. Source: https://www.gov.uk/monitoring-work-workers-rights https://www.gov.uk/monitoring-work-workers-rights In some countries (Germany springs to mind) there are much stricter rules. A blanket statement like the one you've made here is not correct unless you're being very specific about where you're talking about.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Germany it is, should have mentioned that.
- abwizz 3y ago
  this was way before gdpr. more like employee rights. employer cant just come by and snoop throu your drawers either.

jupp0r 3y ago

Germany famously just passed legislation that forces employers to record working hours for all employees.

netrus 3y ago
The employer must not under-record the time worked - no one forces them to track the duration of breaks.
darkwater 3y ago
It must akin to the Spanish similar regulation I guess, but the idea is to force employers recognize and pay extra worked hours, not to spy on the employees.
moooo99 3y ago
That is a non-issue regarding privacy and the intention is to ensure compliance with employee protection laws capping the maximum weekly working time. You write down when you started working and you write down when you stop. Some employers automatically subtract your legally required break time, some want you to enter it manually.
- notyourwork 3y ago
  Is there a concept equivalent to US, salary employee? If so what are they expected to work?
  - Swizec 3y ago
    (I’m from Europe, have lived in US the past 8 years) > Is there a concept equivalent to US, salary employee? Yes. It’s called full-time employee. This encompasses anyone and everyone who does not work as an independent contractor. > If so what are they expected to work? 40 hours per week. With mandated minimum lunch time and breaks, paid minimum vacation, paid medical leave, paid maternity/paternity, govt mandated lunch allowance, govt mandated transportation allowance based on commute distance, and many other “perks” that US companies use as negotiation tactics. If you work more than 40 hours per week, you can request overtime pay. Many employees waive the overtime thing for various reasons. In some industries because they’re exploited (restaurants and such), in other industries because they’re Mission Driven and want to work more (startups and such). The law is there to protect you, but in practiceit comes down to your relationship with your boss. edit: Personally, I don’t like this paternalistic/maternalistic attitude from either approach (as laws or as perks). Just pay me a shitload of money and let me figure out the rest. I’m old enough to buy my own lunch thank you.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

As a foreign developer living in Austria I'd like to offer a counter perspective: that might be why Austria, even in the tech scene has some of the lowest and least flexibly WFH possibilities I've ever seen in any EU job market: so the bosses can keep a close eye on you at the office, because they can't via SW. Every job I applied to, even the most liberal ones mandates at least 2 day per week at the office in the best case, with some SW companies having max 1 day per week WFH because "we're more efficient at the office" lol. Every time I ask at an interview if they let me work 100% from home, so I don't waste 2h/day commuting, they look at me like I asked them to let me f*ck their mom. Also, many Austrian companies keep rigid track of your time and breaks at the office via electronic card punch in/out systems which are a government mandated legalized forms of workplace surveillance, meaning I have to spend 8h per day at the office regardless of my work being done in 5 and unable to do anything remotely productive for the remaining 3 because my brain is fried, while some companies even make you punch out for coffee breaks so you're not taking a break on your employer's dime, meaning you need to spend even more time at the office what's beyond your legal allowed 30 min lunch break which is also not included in your 8h closely-recorded workday. So IMHO, it's not all as progresive as you make it sound. It feels like an archaic system designed to keep unionized factory workers strictly in line to their mandated 30 min lunch breaks and making sure no overtime occurs on their shift, but is severely out of place in the world of digital knowledge work where it's used in some companies to keep employees at the office glued for 8 hours to their chairs.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Are you paid by the hour? Any job I've ever had with such rigid time tracking requirements was a hourly paid position. This sort of thing backfires on the employer in my opinion. It's quite easy to stretch a task to fill 8 hours if you have to be there anyway. But maybe you'd be happy to clock out after 5 hours one day and take a few extra unpaid hours for yourself. If your work is done, the employer should be happy to save a little money and let you do that.
- Haemm0r 3y ago
  Quite sure he is. Usually All-In contracts don't log their time in Austria.