The Fin Is surveillance the price you pay to work from home?
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Sep 3, 2025 David Marin-Guzman, a workplace correspondent for the Australian Financial Review, dives into the alarming case of a company using employee laptops as covert listening devices. He unpacks the tension between remote surveillance and personal privacy, emphasizing how such practices can erode trust. Discussions also touch on proposed legislation to secure the right to work from home in Australia and the evolving implications of AI technology in monitoring. The conversation raises vital questions about the future of worker rights and the balance needed between oversight and privacy.
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Be Transparent About Monitoring
- Employers should use telemetry cautiously and be transparent about what they monitor so employees can decide whether to accept it.
- Secretive surveillance is unacceptable and undermines trust.
Covert Laptop Recordings Spark Employee Harm
- Safetrack secretly installed Terramind on work laptops and recorded screens and microphone audio of selected remote staff for about six weeks.
- Employees discovered recordings, became anxious, hid laptops, and two lodged workers' compensation and unlawful dismissal claims.
Employees Locked Out, Then Dismissed
- After discovery, employees were locked out of systems, stopped being paid, and two were fired within weeks.
- One dismissal referenced a text comparing the company to the Wild West as an imminent reputational threat.