The days of skiving behind your boss’s back may be numbered, following the announcement of a new product that can track your every movement in the workplace.
Electronics manufacturer Hitachi has unveiled a high-tech ID badge that not only tracks an employee’s exact location within the office, it also keeps a record of all the other staff members they have spoken to, for how long and how energetically.
Dubbed the Business Microscope, the device will also send an employer information on how much time each member of staff spends out of their seat — and even how long they have spent in the toilet.
As well as being used to find out which employees spend their days aimlessly wandering around the office gossiping to friends, the Business Microscope will also record how energetically they have contributed to group meetings, where a high level of enthusiasm and animation can be a good thing.
Although the product looks more like an ID badge or business card than a high-tech surveillance device, it actually contains complicated sensors that allow it to sync and interact with other Business Microscopes belonging to the company.
A message posted on the Hitachi website said: ‘Business Microscope uses senor [sic] technology to measure and analyse inner company communication and activities.
Multiple sensor devices are placed inside a nameplate-type sensor that is attached to employees’.
‘When the name tag sensors come within a specific distance of each other, they recognise each other and record the face time, body and behaviour rhythm data to a server’.
Hitatchi said the technology was designed to help boost efficiency levels in the workplace and to help employers realise and react to problems that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Perhaps recognising the product is unlikely to be popular among employees, including their own, Hitatchi adds that they hope it will help boost employee cooperation, leading to a better atmosphere.
The Business Microscope is by no means the first surveillance device to be marketed towards employers for use in the workplace.
Many companies already employ ‘internet monitoring’ software that scans sent and received emails, as well as monitoring the websites they visit over the course of the working day.
These systems often automatically send alerts directly to the employer when company rules are believed to have been broken.
And in 2008 Microsoft filed a patent for software that allowed workers to be tracked remotely, monitored their competence and productivity, and even measured personal information such as body temperature, blood pressure and facial expressions.
It is believed Microsoft abandoned the product shortly after the patent was filed.
