Electronic surveillance

Employee privacy at stake as surveillance technology evolves

Like it or not, employers have always been able to monitor workers. Company email isn't private, and phone calls often come with a familiar voice saying, "This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance." But today, the emergence of new technologies that lets businesses track, listen to and even watch employees while on company time is raising concern about "Big Brother" levels of surveillance.

Life on the job, privacy advocates fear, is rapidly turning into life under a managerial microscope.

Take Walmart, which recently patented a system that could take employee monitoring to a new level by letting the retail giant listen in on workers and customers. The patent filing, for a system Walmart calls "Listening to the Frontend," calls for the use of "sound sensors" to zero in on customers' shopping and check-out experience. It would also monitor specific noises, like the beeps of item scanners and rustling of bags, and even the conversations of workers and shoppers.