Big Brother may be watching you

By Karol Chlipalski

If you're in the office reading this article instead of doing your work, you can't be sure that your boss doesn't know about it, even if he is out of the office. When he returns, he can always print a detailed report of your computer activities.

At least that's the case in offices where Statlook, a new cutting-edge monitoring software package, has been implemented. Statlook, the first ever such product developed in and for the country, is a technology that enables employers at their leisure to spy on employees' work-time computer activities much more easily than ever before.

This application is bound to make vigilant companies happy and malingering employees cringe. While most office computer networks provide outlets for managers to keep tabs on their subordinates' work habits, Statlook aggregates all this information in an easy-to-access printout. Little extra effort, short of buying the software, is then needed for managers to know almost everything.

The software, however, is controversial, and its launch has sparked a discussion among employers, employees and technology professionals.

"Statlook makes it clear that if you keep a document open and you do not touch the keyboard, the documents get deactivated after some time, and the program notices it," said Magdalena Kopleńska, a sales representative at A plus C, the media and IT company that developed Statlook.

Statlook produces detailed reports of each computer's daily activities and can serve as proof that employees are wasting time instead of working.

"It gives you a detailed list of programs that have been in use, documents you have been working on, web sites you were connecting to, and it is going to give you a detailed summary of your workday, including how much time you have spent with every one of those programs," said Miłosz Cechnicki, president of A plus C.

Kopleńska explains that Statlook could be a useful tool to monitor whether software is being used in an optimal way, and if some programs are superfluous.

"It helps in realizing whether one of the employees who has installed, for example, Excel, does not really need it and is not using it," she said. "The license could then be switched to a different employee or not extended in the future. It helps in saving money spent on redundant software."

Statlook is a variant of Uplook, software that detects illegal software loaded on computers in the office.

"A plus C once got caught by the authorities for using illegal software, and we proposed developing such a program by our means instead of paying a fine," said an employee at the firm. The police and the Business Software Alliance, an international watchdog organization for software copyright protection, agreed to the arrangement.

Cechnicki said that after he implemented Statlook on the computers in his own company, he learned more information about the work habits of his employees than he had expected. After Statlook's implementation, the productivity in one department even rose by 20% after half of the team had serious "talks" with him. Cechnicki said that one person was fired as a result of those talks.

"People who protested the most during the implementation (of the software) had the most to hide," he said.

Cechnicki added that most customers have reacted favorably to the software. "Heads of companies were saying, 'Finally, at last,'" he said. Nevertheless, he declined to say how many copies of the program have been sold to date.

Cechnicki denies that Statlook's usage raises ethical questions about invading employees' privacy. "We have asked lawyers if the program does not violate the personal rights of employees, (and) they said no," he said. "But we advise our clients to precede its implementation by providing employees with information."

Experts from the Civil Rights Ombudsman office are also convinced that the surveillance software does not violate employees' rights to privacy, but they stress that their opinion should not be considered an official statement on behalf of the institutions they represent.

"An employer is allowed to control his employees - don't forget that they are working on computers that belong to him," said an attorney from the ombudsman's office, who believes that the reports that Statlook produces could be legal proof for a worker's dismissal.

Dagmara Izbicka, senior manager at IBM Business Consulting Services, thinks that Uplook and similar software like Statlook could be a useful tool for large firms with thousands of workers who can't be steadily monitored by their managers, especially in times of recession when cost-cutting is important. But she said that the program is misused by small or medium-sized companies where managers should be able to closely monitor their employees. In this case, a supplementary software tool is not necessary.

Ryszard Stocki, who specializes in the field of work-relation psychology at Jagellonian University, strongly opposes surveillance software such as Statlook, arguing that managers cannot raise employee productivity by increasing control over them. He pointed out that there have been cases where workers have committed acts of sabotage even under close monitoring. He added that among employees there are also computer specialists, who would immediately develop programs to modify Statlook reports.

"A better idea is to talk to people and convince them about the importance of what they're doing; this is the only one way to raise their involvement," Stocki said.