By accepting computer usage monitoring and internet surveillance by employers, the risk is that it will further encroach into all aspects of everyday life.Īs lockdowns came into force around the world in March 2020, interest in employee surveillance software surged. “There is something depressing about the idea that full-grown adults must be subjected to routine surveillance of their activities in order to hold the jobs necessary to pay their bills and provide for their families.” – ACLU Īs advocates for internet freedom and the right to privacy, we believe this kind of computer surveillance in the workplace should never be normalized. There has been a huge rise in the range and sophistication of surveillance technologies being adopted around the world and, as remote work looks set to continue for the foreseeable future, invasive employee surveillance may also be here to stay. Only the developers of Time Doctor and Crossover do not actively promote annual price incentives on their websites. Eight in 10 developers of the 10 most in-demand employee monitoring software tools encourage long-term use by offering annual price incentives and lifetime purchasing options. The developers of employee surveillance software also do their best to guarantee that their products become permanent fixtures of the modern workplace. Previous international crises have shown that once heightened surveillance measures are introduced they are often never reversed. Why Are We Tracking Employee Monitoring Software Demand? However, even when demand for the software eventually flattens out, as it naturally must, the damage to employee privacy will already have been done. It will certainly be interesting to see if this trend continues into 2023. The difference this time however is that between August and December 2022 the size of the average increase in demand compared to 2019 actually declined month-to-month for four consecutive months for the first time since we began monitoring it in early 2020. It should also be noted that demand fell to similar levels in December 2020 only to rebound strongly over the course of the following year. While demand for the software did start to weaken in the final quarter of 2022 to its lowest point since before March 2020, it remained 35% higher than in 2019. The level of demand has remained consistent since 2021, which also saw a 57% increase in comparison to 2019 levels.Īs the above graph shows, there has been a sustained increase in demand for employee surveillance following the initial spike in demand in March 2020. It was even higher during the first quarter of the year (73%). The prospect of working from home becoming permanent, even if only for part of the week, appears to have prompted a resurgent appetite for this intrusive computer surveillance software.Įmployee monitoring software demand was 57% higher on average in 2022 than it was in 2019. Almost three years on, hybrid working is being touted as the future of employment, with its mix of remote work and days in the office.
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