I expected my recent piece about workplace monitoring technologies to elicit some reader response. Within the confines of trying to make the story interesting to read, I tried to present a balanced perspective on monitoring. I figured that balance was destined to make me a target, particularly of privacy advocates who felt that monitoring of any kind is immoral.But the advocates never materialized. The comments on the piece have generally been thoughtful and surprisingly positive about the idea. Part of it has to do with CIO’s audience, of course. IT has long had to live in the real world, where a subset of employees steal things and slack off and work inefficiently and generally cost instead of making money for their companies. Technology tools can help identify those very employees. But there’s still a Big Brother ring to it all that could understandably irritate the rank and file (and when that happens, the overall detrimental effect of monitoring might outweigh the benefits.) But where’s the outcry? Could it be that it’s finally happened? Could the idea of the “Surveillance Society” be so ingrained already that we’ll politely succomb to monitoring without so much as a “Hold on a minute…”? Possibly.And is that so bad? After all, as the argument goes, if you’re doing no wrong; you’ve got nothing to hide. Of course, the definition of “wrong” can get pretty flexible. Today’s pleasant diversion could be tomorrow’s termination-inducing offence. All it takes is a change in management–or maybe even a personal vendetta.Digital video backups, keycard records, keystroke loggers, Web traffic monitors, email content archivers; give it a couple years and employers will be able to grab the monitoring history of any employee and quickly filter out a couple reasons to fire them upon demand with enough evidence to keep those pesky wrongful termination suits at bay.Granted, assuming we get to that point, it will also give some employers the chance to differentiate themselves on privacy issues. If you’re the top salesperson in your industry, which company are you going to pick? The one that lets you do business the way you always have–including those long lunch-hour-plus outings to Nevada Bob’s and mid-day “one-on-none” meetings at the ball park? Or the one that tracks your every move on a GPS enabled phone and automatically checks your actual location against your office calendar every hour?Of course, the rules are always different for the stars, so they may be able to negotiate invisibility for themselves anywhere. Everyone else? Just smile for the camera. Related content feature Expedia poised to take flight with generative AI CTO Rathi Murthy sees the online travel service’s vast troves of data and AI expertise fueling a two-pronged transformation strategy aimed at growing the company by bringing more of the travel industry online. By Paula Rooney Jun 02, 2023 7 mins Travel and Hospitality Industry Digital Transformation Artificial Intelligence case study Deoleo doubles down on sustainability through digital transformation The Spanish multinational olive oil processing company is immersed in a digital transformation journey to achieve operational efficiency and contribute to the company's sustainability strategy. By Nuria Cordon Jun 02, 2023 6 mins CIO Supply Chain Digital Transformation brandpost Resilient data backup and recovery is critical to enterprise success As global data volumes rise, business must prioritize their resiliency strategies. By Neal Weinberg Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Democratizing HPC with multicloud to accelerate engineering innovations Cloud for HPC is facilitating broader access to high performance computing and accelerating innovations and opportunities for all types of organizations. By Tanya O'Hara Jun 01, 2023 6 mins Multi Cloud Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe