All pretty anodyne stuff, I suppose, and a legitimate means of keeping on top of your employees’ less conscientious activities. But then we didn’t reckon on a proposal from Microsoft (filed recently at the US patent office) for a system that is capable of monitoring individual stress levels among groups of users on a network.
Wow! 1984 eat your heart out! This system would be capable of measuring your cardiac activity, blood pressure, galvanic skin response, muscle cell electrical activity, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature and movements of various kinds, including facial movements and expressions.
It was a bit of a task wading through the patent-ese, but as far as this writer was able to understand, the system monitors groups of individuals sharing workloads on a network for signs of work- or other-related stress. The idea is that if one poor soul flips – as revealed by ‘abnormalities’ in these parameters – then his or her task may be reassigned to another individual, and a black mark appear on his or her record. Ultimately, I suppose, it’s the black plastic bag and a firm escort to the front door, if the individual accumulates too many black marks.
But then it doesn’t stop there does it? According to the patent application, all this information is “aggregated”, so what’s stopping other agents or agencies from getting hold of these physical profiles and putting them to a use beyond that which was originally intended? We have some pretty spectacular recent data fiascos to call upon in support of that argument.
The term, vicious circle also comes to mind. If we are monitored for our stress levels, doesn’t that in turn raise our levels of stress and have a negative impact on our productivity?
It’s enough to drive you to drink isn’t it? But then that would show up as soon as you sat down at your camera-bristling desktop and donned your personal sensor vest, wouldn’t it? Why am I so happy to be contemplating the possibility of early retirement?
Les Hunt
Editor
PS Contrary to the impression I may have given above, we do have friends out there. The Samaritans, God bless them, are championing the cause for sanity by supporting the national Stress Down Day on February 1st. Visit www.stressdownday.org for more details. The site conveys a serious message with a bit of added fun. Log on – it might even help you through a difficult day…….