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Legality of monitoring remote employees in their homes with a webcam during work hours

HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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This might be a question for legal-ERA if we have much of a legal-ERA community.

I work remote for my company, who is located in another state. They had some things happen recently that make them want to implement some more monitoring on remote employees. One idea they are considering is having software that would activate the webcams on your computers and record you...all day during work hours. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to see the major issues with this, even from a standpoint of the company making sure it's employees are actually working. There's a huge difference between a security camera at an office versus a webcam on my face for the entire day. As someone that suffers from anxiety, that makes things ten times worse for me personally. I absolutely cannot deal with that if that's the case.

Talking to some friends about this, this may not even be legal, but Googling it has led me to very mixed answers. Is this actually legal or not? For what it's worth, I'm in Texas.

I will also say that fortunately, my company is very open to my feedback about this, as I brought up my concerns with my manager after this. She has the CEO's ear. The manager agrees with me, but told me that they are trying to find unintrusive ways to do it.

So does anyone have any experience with a company doing this, and is it legal?
 
Chopchop

Chopchop

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Oct 25, 2017
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I've never heard of this before, but it sounds fucking insane. "Unintrusive" and "using webcams to record all employees at all times" don't go together at all.
 
hiro_x

hiro_x

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Nov 2, 2017
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Tell them about Time Doctor, its a software for that regularly take screenshots of your desktop. You can pause it when you're not working. If you're idle for a 15 minutes then a window will popup asking you if you are still working.
 
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HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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Chopchop said:
I've never heard of this before, but it sounds fucking insane. "Unintrusive" and "using webcams to record all employees at all times" don't go together at all.
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They're trying to find another method other than webcams...There were some potential things they might try including changing the timesheet to clocking in/out rather than just entering hours at the end of the day, but the way the CEO made it sound they want to go further than that.

I agree it's pretty insane to use webcams and is incredibly intrusive.
 
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HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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hiro_x said:
Tell them about Time Doctor, its a software for that regularly take screenshots of your desktop. You can pause it when you're not working. If you're idle for a 15 minutes then a window will popup asking you if you are still working.
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This is definitely better. I'll bring this up with them. Thank!
 
Catdaddy

Catdaddy

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Oct 27, 2017
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The whole monitoring of a private residence just doesn't sound right… can't site any sources other than my gut…
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

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I'm not sure there's a legal precedent and I can see both sides of wanting and not wanting it.

Obviously the privacy implications are there since it's your home.
The other side is that it could be a condition of remote work so that the company can ensure you are staying on task. I think having a piece of software that automatically does it is a bit far, you should be able to turn it on and connect it yourself and merely be questioned about it if you didn't (same as merely clocking in on hourly positions).
 
Baji Boxer

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That seems bonkers. Either the work gets done or it doesn't. Staring at your face all day isn't going to tell them anything useful lol.
 
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HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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hikarutilmitt said:
I'm not sure there's a legal precedent and I can see both sides of wanting and not wanting it.

Obviously the privacy implications are there since it's your home.
The other side is that it could be a condition of remote work so that the company can ensure you are staying on task. I think having a piece of software that automatically does it is a bit far, you should be able to turn it on and connect it yourself and merely be questioned about it if you didn't (same as merely clocking in on hourly positions).
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I get them wanting the monitoring, but I feel like surely there about 1000 better ways than putting a webcam on my face of me staring at a computer screen. I also feel like these things should show in the work you actually produce rather than verifying you are just sitting there.
 
Ryo Hazuki

Ryo Hazuki

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If my company asked me to do this and insisted it I would probably leave as soon as possible. No fucking way would I do that.
 
Oligarchenemy

Oligarchenemy

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Has the company consulted it's legal team about this?

I can't help but feel this gets very sketchy at some points, especially if it's international.
 

Deleted member 3812

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What the hell?!?! I would not want my place of employment have the ability to remotely turn on webcams in a personal residence. I would not agree to this even if it is legal, next potential scenario would be the job asking you to carry around the webcam all day no matter where you go if you are working from home. Fuck no!!!!
 
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HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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KSweeley said:
What the hell?!?! I would not want my place of employment have the ability to remotely turn on webcams in a personal residence. I would not agree to this even if it is legal, next potential scenario would be the job asking you to carry around the webcam all day no matter where you go if you are working from home. Fuck no!!!!
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That's exactly how I feel about it, and I'm pretty much out the door if they actually go through with that.
 

Robdraggoo

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Unnecessary. As long is the work is completed and you have quotas to meet or metrics, what does it matter what your physically doing.

Besides, the biggest reason to work from home is to work in your jammies.
 
MrKlaw

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Working from home for salaried staff they should be able to monitor at a high level if your line manager is happy with the work being done. It's good for the company as they can reduce the eff drive cost per employee if more work from home so this is a two way street

Pretty sure in the UK they couldn't even record you in their own office - general security cameras but nothing pointing clearly at people screens. Home would be a definite non starter
 
dragonchild

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HylianSeven said:
I also feel like these things should show in the work you actually produce rather than verifying you are just sitting there.
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Well there's the rub, isn't it? Often times the most productive employees aren't necessarily the hardest workers. Executives these days would rather see you miserable than productive, because they literally think the former is the latter. As I've said before, the U.S. economy isn't based on productivity, or even greed. It's based on misery.
 
TheIlliterati

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There are definitely programs and applications that businesses use to monitor and track hours for remote workers, but I am not familiar enough with them to remember their names. However, it seems as though the precedents will have already been set and tested if they research it more. I work from home but am paid on a per project basis, so I am not tracked at all.
 
Zoe

Zoe

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I'm struggling to think of how this could possibly be illegal. They'll be doing it with your consent.

(though non-consent would mean you get fired)
 
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HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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Zoe said:
I'm struggling to think of how this could possibly be illegal. They'll be doing it with your consent.

(though non-consent would mean you get fired)
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I'd think from the angle of putting a camera in your home. I'm not a lawyer but that sounds fishy as all hell.
 
Zoe

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MrKlaw said:
Pretty sure in the UK they couldn't even record you in their own office - general security cameras but nothing pointing clearly at people screens. Home would be a definite non starter
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What about work places that require dedicated office space subject to inspection?
 
EnronERA

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There's all kinds of productivity management software that can be used to monitor employee activity on work laptops. the webcam thing hell to the fuck no, and no decent company would even suggest something like that. That shit is amateur hour.
 

Squiggely

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Zoe said:
I'm struggling to think of how this could possibly be illegal. They'll be doing it with your consent.

(though non-consent would mean you get fired)
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IT could be illegal to ask for consent to monitor an employee from their place of residence, perhaps?

OP, I'd run a mile away if someone insisted on that, personally.
 
B4mv

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If my job pulled this when I worked from home, I'd spend the day at home on Indeed/Dice/Monster/CareerBuilder/LinkedIn.
Probably would be way less productive than usual.
 
GodofWine

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Maybe, they could just check to see if your work is completed, and OK, and not worry about if you are sitting at a desk all day at home.

For me (when I did it), working from home meant I had a 24 hour cycle to do whatever I wanted to, work was 9-5, meetings were online and attended, but if I wanted to go to the gym at 2pm, fine, I'll be working on that report that is due in 3 days at night from 9-10 or whatever. (of course I always had a phone on me in case I was needed).

OR - Its just not that hard to break a webcam and leave a broke microphone plugged in all day (literall just cut the wire at the plug of an old set or earbuds with mic, and plug it in.)
 
Aesthet1c

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Robdraggoo said:
Unnecessary. As long is the work is completed and you have quotas to meet or metrics, what does it matter what your physically doing.

Besides, the biggest reason to work from home is to work in your jammies.
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Agree completely. My company let's us work remotely one day a week, and we had issues in the past of people abusing this. So their resolution was to require daily status reports on the issues we worked on throughout the day. It's kind of annoying, but it's infinitely better than having a web cam on me or taking screenshots of my desktop.
 
lacer

lacer

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HylianSeven said:
A lot of things that would be "with your consent (or get fired)" are illegal though.
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considering how at will employment works, not really, but if you're using their equipment you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy anyway though.
 
moblin

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I agree with others that it sets off alarm bells that it was floated as a serious idea.


There are lots of very effective software solutions for ensuring productivity for remote employees, and any reasonable operations manager should know to look at those options first. I doubt it's actually illegal, but it's not a policy that any company that respects its employees would implement.
 
The Albatross

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I read about this once recently on Reddit or StackOverflow.

Company is fucked. It's probably legal, but it's fucked up. Unless they pay you a shit load of money you should consider leaving the comapny and going elsewhere over this intrusion. BEyond that, it's not at all feasible... What, are they going to have someone monitor everybody's desk 24/7 or something? What if you have to take a shit for 20 minutes? What if you sign on at 11PM to finish doign something you meant to do earlier, is "the monitor" going to be logged on confirming your time giving you credit for it?

This is so employee hostile, and if your company can't trust their employees then that's probably a problem with management, not a problem with the employees. Train their managers better and they won't need to have issues lie this.
 
Wereroku

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Spaced Harrier said:
It's an unacceptable work environment, entitlement to privacy a million things.
This would never fly in Europe.
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That's nice unfortunately they are based in the US and Texas. Since Texas is a right to work state I am pretty sure they could require monitoring software as part of your job and not have any issues with it. I doubt they could have it turn on by itself but I don't think it would be illegal since you would place the camera yourself as a requirement for continued employment. However this feels awful for the employees that haven't been abusing it. They should just use this as a form of probation on employees caught abusing the system.

The Albatross said:
I read about this once recently on Reddit or StackOverflow.

Company is fucked. It's probably legal, but it's fucked up. Unless they pay you a shit load of money you should consider leaving the comapny and going elsewhere over this intrusion. BEyond that, it's not at all feasible... What, are they going to have someone monitor everybody's desk 24/7 or something? What if you have to take a shit for 20 minutes? What if you sign on at 11PM to finish doign something you meant to do earlier, is "the monitor" going to be logged on confirming your time giving you credit for it?

This is so employee hostile, and if your company can't trust their employees then that's probably a problem with management, not a problem with the employees. Train their managers better and they won't need to have issues lie this.
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Probably spot checks but in all honesty just having this going would make most people behave since they can't tell when they are being monitored.
 
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HylianSeven

HylianSeven

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lacer said:
considering how at will employment works, not really, but if you're using their equipment you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy anyway though.
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Well I'm not actually using their equipment. I remote into a machine from my personal machine. They did send us company laptops, however I only really use those for a side project with the company that I rarely get to work on (and is not considered as important as the main one).
 
Violence Jack

Violence Jack

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Most of the companies I've worked for just monitor their employees by when they log in and out of the VPN.
 
GameAddict411

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Sounds like a control freak is on board the management team. Self awareness of crossing the line seems obvious to people form the outside, but not always from the inside. If they encountering productivity issues with their online employees, then they should implement a goal system. The goals have to be reasonable off course, and there should be consequences for not meeting them(unless there is a legitimate reason).
 

Random Painted Highway

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Oct 25, 2017
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Creepy. I doubt that the laws are up to snuff on this issue. I would expect that most employment agreements would be upheld in Texas in particular.
 
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