Technology’s rapid race to the future is updating systems businesses use to monitor their employees, an old company-issued, cardboard ID card replaced in some instances by microchip implants injected beneath the skin. Security cameras have become standard at most companies, but they’re being modernized with facial recognition capabilities running on artificial intelligence-enhanced software. In the right conditions, suggests cyber-security expert Parham Eftekhari, Executive Director of Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), it can be a benefit. “If you have facial recognition technology and you fire somebody, you can train the system, if they recognize the person, don’t let them in the building or send an alert to security.”
Facial and iris scans are gaining in popularity, but as more and more technology is being brought to bear, questions are being asked about how deeply into employee’s lives, and performance, are they allowed to go? “What if the security technology can monitor your performance, and ask why a person isn’t typing more hours a week, even though you’re working on another device or your phone that doesn’t happen to be on that data capture process?” asks Eftekhari.
And as your boss finds more and more ways to monitor your activities, along with your health insurance background and records and everything else, what happens to that information if your employer gets hacked?