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Post by: Frazzled
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/worker-fired-for-disabling-gps-app-that-tracked-her-24-hours-a-day/
Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day [Updated]
"This intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person," lawsuit says.
by David Kravets - May 11, 2015 11:41am CDT
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Plaintiff Myrna Arias, a former Bakersfield sales executive for money transfer service Intermex, claims in a state court lawsuit that her boss, John Stubits, fired her shortly after she uninstalled the job-management Xora app that she and her colleagues were required to use. According to her suit (PDF) in Kern County Superior Court:
After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone. Plaintiff expressed that she had no problem with the app's GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours and complained to Stubits that this was an invasion of her privacy. She likened the app to a prisoner's ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion…..
Intermex did not immediately respond for comment.
The suit, which claims invasion of privacy, retaliation, unfair business practices, and other allegations, seeks damages in excess of $500,000 and asserts she was monitored on the weekends when she was not working.
Arias' boss "scolded" her for uninstalling the app shortly after being required to use it, according to the suit. Her attorneys said the woman made $7,250 per month and that she "met all quotas" during a brief stint with Intermex last year.
"This intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person," the filing said.
Arias' attorney, Gail Glick, said in a Monday e-mail to Ars that the app allowed her client's "bosses to see every move the employees made throughout the day."
The app had a "clock in/out" feature which did not stop GPS monitoring, that function remained on. This is the problem about which Ms. Arias complained. Management never made mention of mileage. They would tell her co-workers and her of their driving speed, roads taken, and time spent at customer locations. Her manager made it clear that he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time.
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Post by: PhantomViper
Why didn't she just left the phone at the office when she left work for the day?
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Post by: Frazzled
Because you have to be reachable.
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Post by: PhantomViper
Then that means that she was always at work. And if she was always at work, then she was always on company time and the monitoring was perfectly justified.
Case dismissed.
You're welcome. 
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
They can call your personal phone, the one they don't monitor.
She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.
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Post by: kronk
After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone
Put me on that jury.
I'll give her lots of money.
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Post by: Henry
 Howard A Treesong wrote:She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.
There are lots of jobs where that isn't an option.
My two questions would be;
1) As part of her contract was she required to be contactable out of shift hours?
2) As part of her contract was it stated the phone could be used for personal use out of shift hours?
If either of those are yes I reckon she's got a good enough reason to try to sue.
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Post by: Frazzled
Howard A Treesong wrote: They can call your personal phone, the one they don't monitor. She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.
Call? No one calls anyone any more. Its all about da emails da emails da emails. EDIT: and leaving the phone at work would eventually have been a fireable offense. This is standard business practice for higher level employees, even when on vacation.
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Post by: Orlanth
 kronk wrote:
Put me on that jury.
I'll give her lots of money.
Thats not how jury selection works kronk.
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Post by: Frazzled
Depends on the local jurisdiction. If it were Corpus Christi or San Antonio, yea that kind of how it works.  This is counterbalanced by Louisiana where they occasionally eat the parties, or New Mexico where they just turn them into mutants.
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Post by: Orlanth
Howard A Treesong wrote:
They can call your personal phone, the one they don't monitor.
She should have just left the phone at work or turned off. I'm not the sort of person that wants to be 'reachable' at all hours. You should bring stuff to my attention during work hours not when I'm out shopping at the weekend.
While the GPS is intrusive, being contactable 24/7 is not if you are contracted for it.
Her role likely entailed some troubleshooting, reactive work or crisis management. Those cant call be scheduled for office hours.
I know someone who got a very high paid job working for the Sun newspaper as tech support. He spend 99% of the time doing nothing at work getting paid lots of money. The price for all that was that if the computers did have a problem he would be accessible and ready to go at any time from any place, he had to live within a certain distance of the office and remain within that radius even if off duty unless on formal holiday. This was because if the computers go down, no papers in the morning, that CANT HAPPEN for a major newspaper. Some things can wait until office hours, others things cant, you need both a can do attitude, the ability to back it up and constant availability to make sure your company doesnt fail.
These types of jobs are rare and usually very lucrative, being overpaid and underworked in return for a promise of constant readiness, and competent fast action.
The GPS thing is a logical extension of an existing type of work, and has more logic to it than it at first sounds.
It can get a lot more intrusive if you work in the power industry, especially nuclear. 'Sorry I cant respond to your class 1 alert at the reactor because i left my phone off' doesn't cut it.
Whether this level of control was warranted in the plaintiffs employment is yet to be apparent.
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Post by: Wyrmalla
Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that? Whether or not she was going to be available due to her location (i.e. if she was on the other side of the country) could have been determined through talking to her instead.
Question then, if she loses this suit then does this give other companies precedence to do the same thing? 
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Personally I think all employees should be continually monitored for when and how much sex they have.
If you are having a lot of athletic sex, it increases the chance you may be too tired to work at full pace during company time.
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Post by: Orlanth
 Wyrmalla wrote:Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that? Whether or not she was going to be available due to her location (i.e. if she was on the other side of the country) could have been determined through talking to her instead.
Potentially nothing, potentially a lot. It all depends how critical her role was for fast response. If she was a very highly paid lawyer, and those can be on 24/7 call location doesn't matter. If she is required for hands on technical expertise she will have a travel radius limitation that cant be broken even off duty unless on formal holiday with cover in response radius guaranteed.
A number of roles are in this category, when safety is a real issue or system failure causes delay or widespread failure in industries where such failure is not acceptable. Power stations and media outlets come under those categories.
Looking at Intermex its a money transfer service. So its working in the e-financial sector, and a highly regulated part of that. That's not as critical as a newspaper with a guaranteed print run time, or a live TV station or a power station, but it's getting there. If the servers have problems Intermex will quite reasonably employ people to be available to share their expertise within a very short timeframe in event of emergency.
GPS is a bit of a stretch, but how else will they know if an employee they pay several $k in bonuses for 24/7 call has decided to drive off to Oregon for the weekend.
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Post by: Wyrmalla
I'll reiterate my point then that they don't need to track a person with GPS to know their location. All they have to do is phone the person and ask them. I mean the employee's already required to be available 24/7 so its not as if they can use the excuse of not being able to contact the person.
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Post by: notprop
Wyrmalla wrote:Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that?
"I can't come in/deal with that, I'm in Miami".
[Big Brother check App] "No you're not, You're at home".
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Post by: welshhoppo
And then you can see if they are going on long trips abroad.
"We notice that you spend a lot of time on holiday, it is obvious we are paying you too much money "
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Post by: Wyrmalla
 notprop wrote: Wyrmalla wrote:Even if she was to be contacted out of office hours, what relevance does her location have to do with that?
"I can't come in/deal with that, I'm in Miami".
[Big Brother check App] "No you're not, You're at home".
As Orlanth said though people on these on-call types of contracts need to be within a certain distance of the business 24/7. If they stray outside of that area they should inform their employer beforehand so someone else can be available. That bullgak argument wouldn't work even if they were in Miami. =P
Though also would it similarly be over stepping the mark to rather track where the call was coming from when the company phones to ask about the employee's location? As in rather than 24/7 surveillance, just checking when the call is made? OK, that could lead to companies phoning employees constantly and being a similar infringement, that and they'd probably have to do that through the phone companies.
...And is kind of sort of wiretapping, but I guess this case isn't quite the same because of how snazzy apps are? 
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Post by: Orlanth
Wyrmalla wrote:I'll reiterate my point then that they don't need to track a person with GPS to know their location. All they have to do is phone the person and ask them. I mean the employee's already required to be available 24/7 so its not as if they can use the excuse of not being able to contact the person.
That would involve either.
- Phoning them all the time.
- Taking a risk they are where they say they are. In an industry that can't take risks.
Having standard tech support for an office off elsewhere, yeah call them up. But fast response is different, there are guarantees in the contract, for which the employee is well renumerated for.
Taking my mate in the Sun, his job description might as well be.
Job: Play online games all day
Salary: £35,000 starting rising to £50,000 after one year with annual bonuses.
Gaming rig supplied.
Painting table available if you want to paint and play tabletop games.
However for that he has to be there in the Sun's print room computer support area all night ready to drop everything and fix the computers so the morning print goes out on time. He also has to be on call by day.
He rarely does any actual work, and is constantly on courses to update his skillset.
I don't know how he is monitored but he could quite easily disappear across to France for the day if he so desired, and be back for work in the evening, he could even bunk off as the computers rarely have any fault. But if they do....
from what I remember the Sun takes a lot on trust with its tech support, they get a good package and in return don't abuse it, even if they only actually truly work for a few very hectic hours every year. Internex doesnt trust its employees as much, but then in the US its easy to make 'short journeys' of several hundred miles round trip. In the UK that sort of thinking is not prevalent.
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Post by: kronk
There are some jobs where you are on call and have to be reachable 24/7. It's the job you chose, tough gak.
BUT, the GPS tracking at all times? That's bs.
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Post by: Tannhauser42
Eh, on one hand, I feel "company phone = company can do what it wants with it." But I don't know all the details, like what terms she agreed to, etc. I do feel it's wrong that the boss was actively tracking her activities, apparently for the lulz.
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Post by: Eilif
On clock tracking is a good idea. It's entirely reasonable to be able to tell how your employees are spending their work time.
However, the off clock tracking is total BS.
She needs to be reachable that's fine. Even if the job requires her to be able to reach the work within a certain time, then that's still no reason for the off-clock GPS. If she gets the call and can't make it in time then she get's punished/fired/fined, etc. However, making continual monitoring of personal time a condition of employment is probably not going to stand up in court.
The employer also didn't do themeselves any favor when the boss openly stated that he was watching (if that's what he said) and bragged about being able to tell a person's speed and where they were during personal time. That will not look good to the judge and jury.
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Post by: cincydooley
So...she knew the app was installed. She knew the terms of the app for employment. She violated those terms and was fired.
Sounds right to me.
Don't like the terms, don't take the job.
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Post by: Orlanth
 Eilif wrote:
She needs to be reachable that's fine. Even if the job requires her to be able to reach the work within a certain time, then that's still no reason for the off-clock GPS. If she gets the call and can't make it in time then she get's punished/fired/fined, etc. However, making continual monitoring of personal time a condition of employment is probably not going to stand up in court.
Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a mnuclear power station.
There is an incident.
Finding out AFTERWARDS that your star employee is not within responce range and she gets punished/fired/fined doesn't cut it when you now have nuclear regulators all over your managers arse for her not being there.
Now Internex isnt quite as bad, but the stakes are still very high.
Look at what it does, electronic monetary transfer. So its going to have to respond prety damn quick to cybercrime. There will be staff on call in the office round the clock, but you cant really do that with top experts, or with extra staff to handle crises. These need be called in.
If there is a security lapse it could mean curtains fro Internex. A serious lay large percentage of businesses experiencing data security failure go out of business. Stats for this vary from 70% to 90% and while those figures are contested http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0660.html the threat is nevertheless large.
However due to the business nature any major dataloss at a money transfer site is a kiss of death to the company rep.
I can see how this is why some employees at Intermex may be on short call.
There are two other dynamics.
First, insurance - Saying that you have your expert fireteam on GPS tracker might impress insurers enough to grant lower premiums. Insurers take into account that your backup might not be where it says it will be unless physically on site.
Second, personal security - I have no idea if this is relevant here, but some types of employee are a kidnap risk. It's not too extreme a stretch to suggest that a key employees personal passcodes could somehow enable organised crime to sift vast amounts of money from an e-transfer business. Normally however that would be a GPS app feature the employee would turn on rather than be on mandatorily.
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Post by: Forar
 Kilkrazy wrote:Personally I think all employees should be continually monitored for when and how much sex they have. If you are having a lot of athletic sex, it increases the chance you may be too tired to work at full pace during company time.
But consider how high employee morale would be! If I was getting gymnastically railed on a regular basis, I'd probably be happier, dwarfing whatever losses in energy were present. Also with that kind of regular workout and cardio (not to mention endorphin release and whatnot) there'd probably be fewer sick days as well. (well, barring pulling something, but that can be minimized with proper stretching) What I'm saying is that I need to go have a frank discussion with HR about creative uses of our benefits package. But seriously, this kind of tracking (at least off work hours) is unacceptable outside of some 1 in a million 'nuclear maintenance/emergency tech' style situation. She wasn't a nuclear technician, she was a sales exec for a fething money transfer service. And I'm sure that's a lucrative, high stakes and high profit field. But it doesn't justify her boss tracking her whereabouts and fething commenting on them. I'm going to hazard a guess that if it was kept on the down low it might not have been such a big issue. One of those 'back of the mind' things that we're uncomfortable with but often ignore. Joking about tracking her driving speed and gak like that, however, seems a step way too far. Like here at work, I know for a fact my net traffic is being recorded. I also know that IT has very, very strict requirements about when they can check such things. Basically they'd get fired unless it was to investigate criminal activity, and short of committing an indictable offense using said activity, work doesn't really care what I do as long as my job is done. Had this been one of those 'locked tightly away and never glanced at unless there was a damned good reason to do so' things, it might not have been such a big deal. But like that Uber idiot bragging about knowing where people were and showing the data off, it turned the subtext into text, and people were rightfully annoyed.
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Post by: whembly
kronk wrote:There are some jobs where you are on call and have to be reachable 24/7. It's the job you chose, tough gak.
BUT, the GPS tracking at all times? That's bs.
I agree... I work for a major Healthcare organization in IT and I must be reachable at all times. I have a work supplied iPhone and iPad.
But this? F that!
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Post by: Eadartri
I would like to know the terms of the position disclosed to the employee when hired. Was it stated: I am going to track your position 24/7. You have to have the app running all the time. Do not install it. ? Tracking a person also creates a liability to his or her security. (And it is the right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers and effects). What is the business need for gps monitoring? What harm came to the business by uninstalling the app? Was it incumbent upon the individual to disable the app to remain secure in her person?
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Post by: TheDraconicLord
 whembly wrote: kronk wrote:There are some jobs where you are on call and have to be reachable 24/7. It's the job you chose, tough gak.
BUT, the GPS tracking at all times? That's bs.
I agree... I work for a major Healthcare organization in IT and I must be reachable at all times. I have a work supplied iPhone and iPad.
But this? F that!
Yep, when I worked for a bank I HAD to be available to connect to the system and get gak done when I got saying "gak has hit the fan".
But GPS monitoring me?! What right does anyone have to monitor my private life just because of a job?!
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Post by: Wyrmalla
People were concerned over being able to see where they were when playing on the Dakka Minecraft server. This...
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Post by: treslibras
 Orlanth wrote:
Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a nuclear power station.
There is an incident. <snip>
It seems clear that you have no clue how things work around a nuclear plant. They are always manned on-site, 24/7.
If things need to be monitored around the clock, and it is absolutey crucial for someone to be at a certain site to be able to fix things, and work needs to be done all the time, then you let them sit there. That is called a night shift or a weekend shift.
If that is not the case, you keep people on call. Being on call means that you agree to have your private life disturbed in cases of emergency or for special assigments. How often that can be done and how long you need to rest afterwards is normally defined by law.
In any case, being on call does not mean that you revoke your right to a private life.
And your private life may not be monitored around the clock, unless ordered by a court.
That might be different in China, and one might say between NSA and Google, there is not much privacy left anyway. But most western democracies grant some measure of legal protection of the private life.
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Post by: Eilif
Orlanth wrote: Eilif wrote:
She needs to be reachable that's fine. Even if the job requires her to be able to reach the work within a certain time, then that's still no reason for the off-clock GPS. If she gets the call and can't make it in time then she get's punished/fired/fined, etc. However, making continual monitoring of personal time a condition of employment is probably not going to stand up in court.
Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a mnuclear power station...
Except she doesn't.
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Post by: Eadartri
 treslibras wrote: And your private life may not be monitored around the clock, unless ordered by a court.
Excellent point.
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Post by: d-usa
Considering the kind of business this is, the tracking may be more for the phone itself than the actual employee. Being able to track the employee that is in physical possession of the phone could just be incidental to that.
She might not like being tracked (heck I don't like it and I'm a big privacy advocate and I think a business can get fethed when it comes to your free time), but disabling the tracking on the companies phone could present a major security and monetary risk if it happens to be lost. The business has a real and understandable interest in being able to track and recover a piece of hardware that they own which could be used to breach their system.
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Post by: Eadartri
Good point about the phone. She should of just returned it maybe.
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Post by: d-usa
It sucks that she was tracked, I don't disagree there.
If she didn't like it she could have done a number of things: talked to her boss, see if she can work out a deal where she carries it 24/7 while turned off and turns it on when she gets a message on her personal phone, take a pay cut and transfer to a position where she is no longer required to carry it.
But disabling an important security feature on company property without talking to anyone because you don't like it should be an offense she could be fired for.
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Post by: Frazzled
Eadartri wrote:Good point about the phone. She should of just returned it maybe.
Thats not how Life ( TM) works though.
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Post by: Forar
Perhaps I missed it in the article, but didn't it say that she disabled an app, not the GPS itself.
Presumably GPS still worked (and with everyone's love of Google maps, I'd be shocked if she killed it entirely), meaning it would still be trackable in the case of getting lost or stolen?
But not as easily as "hey, so apparently someone had a bit of a lead foot last night!" that this app apparently provided.
Edit: and as noted earlier, if it were just a security precaution that might be one thing.
But they made a bloody game out of it and made their knowledge of her whereabouts public (to her, at least, if not others). That in and of itself, if not illegal, is highly distasteful.
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Post by: Desubot
What was her jerb again?
I can imagine it being a good idea to be able to track all employees in various military or money type jobs in case reasons.
But in any case with 7k a month if i was in her shoes i would just get a second personal phone to have it forwarded to.
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Post by: PhantomViper
Your company's IT department already has the ability to know every site that you've entered. There is nothing special about it.
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Post by: curran12
Well, she worked in money transfers, there is an enormous amount of security in any job that handles money on that scale. And, as pointed out, this was laid out to her before she took the job. So it is pretty clear to me, but then again this is th einternet and anything to do with this kind of monitoring is likely to crush in the court of public opinion.
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Post by: Manchu
She's lucky. If she had attempted to remove her chip, it would have automatically exploded.
In all seriousness, the cell phone belongs to the company. If she doesn't want it to track her location after hours, she needs to leave it at home and carry a cell phone she owns instead (perhaps giving that number to her colleagues if part of her job entails them reaching her after hours).
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Post by: Desubot
 Manchu wrote:She's lucky. If she had attempted to remove her chip, it would have automatically exploded.
But Money transfer? feth no she shouldn't be allowed to disable or remove that program.
The company still needs to be able to track all gak. especially if money is some how lost. that way they have a record of activity to cross check.
the manager is still a donkey cave though.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
feth's sake we had nuclear power stations and computer technicians before mobile phones, let alone GPS tracking and people got their jobs done.
Companies should not take the risk of employing critically important staff they don't trust.
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Post by: Desubot
Kilkrazy wrote:feth's sake we had nuclear power stations and computer technicians before mobile phones, let alone GPS tracking and people got their jobs done. Companies should not take the risk of employing critically important staff they don't trust.
Or people need to cover there ass. even if its inconvenient to some. it saves many many people the headache of having to deal with issues later. Edit: (what im saying is if it was fully written in there contract that this will be a thing then there is no case as its part of the job. and its 100% understandable why companies will do such a thing.)
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Post by: whembly
 d-usa wrote:Considering the kind of business this is, the tracking may be more for the phone itself than the actual employee. Being able to track the employee that is in physical possession of the phone could just be incidental to that.
She might not like being tracked (heck I don't like it and I'm a big privacy advocate and I think a business can get fethed when it comes to your free time), but disabling the tracking on the companies phone could present a major security and monetary risk if it happens to be lost. The business has a real and understandable interest in being able to track and recover a piece of hardware that they own which could be used to breach their system.
You can remotely brick it w/o the need to enable GPS tracking.
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
Your job may ask you to be contactable at all times, but tracking your whereabouts is entirely unnecessary. It serves not purpose other than being nosey and generally suspicious about your employees. How about employers show some trust or not employ someone?
Why is it always 'if she doesn't like it get a different job?' Because once one employer is allowed this more will follow, and then there won't be so many places to go without changing your profession. You Americans bend over to big business, giving them the right to sack people without warning on the spot without explanation, it's the same attitude as when employers wanted people to hand over access to their Facebook during interview so they could poke through what you don't make public. Where do you draw the line?
It's not good enough to say 'work somewhere else' because every job can find someone desperate enough to sign away their rights. As a society you have to draw the line as to what is acceptable. A job is a job, your employer shouldn't have the power to spy on your private life, to monitor your whereabouts and more, when you are outside work. The more the public give in to these ridiculous demands the more companies will push them and the jobs where you won't have to jump through these hoops will diminish. And you can't turn every job down, food has to get on the table somehow.
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Post by: BlaxicanX
Heh... Xora app. I have that app on our company phone as well. It didn't bother me too much until my boss swung by one day to shoot the gak for awhile and bragged about how he was on his phone looking up the locations of everyone else in real time. After that, I didn't disable the app, just the GPS on the phone.  The difference is that it's not in my contract to be monitored by GPS at all times, and I'm just a security guard so they don't really care anyway. I agree with the notion that the chick agreed to whatever the company asked of her upon hiring her, and regardless of how unethical or whatever it is, once she agreed to those procedures being fired is justified if she broke them. If she didn't want to monitored via GPS, and that was mandated in her contract, then she should have quit or not taken the job.
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Post by: Manchu
 BlaxicanX wrote:After that, I didn't disable the app, just the GPS on the phone.
Nice one!
I would be interested to see the employee manual for places that require these things.
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Post by: Eilif
Manchu wrote:She's lucky. If she had attempted to remove her chip, it would have automatically exploded.
In all seriousness, the cell phone belongs to the company. If she doesn't want it to track her location after hours, she needs to leave it at home and carry a cell phone she owns instead (perhaps giving that number to her colleagues if part of her job entails them reaching her after hours).
It sounds like her job required that she be reachable on the company phone at all times (perhaps there is info that the company wants to communicate only on company phones), but then they require the installation of a GPS-using app that reports her position. It's a catch-22.
Company's can't require unnecessary conditions of employment just because they want to. It sounds like in this case they're coercing an unnecessary amount of personal info from their employees. Even if she "signed up for this" when she got the job, in most places the court will require the company to prove that they are not unduly imposing on their workers privacy. If the company can't prove to the court that such tracking is necessary then they'll probably lose.
Consider it this way, a company can't just say "if you want a job here, we get to open all your (paper) mail first." or "if you want to work here we need to see your child's school grades". These -like 24/7 GPS tracking, IMHO- are illegal and unnecessary infringements on privacy.
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Post by: Frazzled
Course there are those of us who were hired before cell phones...
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Post by: Talizvar
Yeah, the clock-in / out should have been enough and to disable GPS.
Sounded like the boss got more of a "kick" out of it than a legitimate business use.
Borderline stalker material on this.
Interesting that for uninstalling the app she is automatically fired: can't have the other slaves trying to ditch the collar.
Laws better be clear on eradicating this kind of infringement.
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Post by: Orlanth
treslibras wrote: Orlanth wrote:
Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a nuclear power station.
There is an incident. <snip>
It seems clear that you have no clue how things work around a nuclear plant. They are always manned on-site, 24/7.
General correct that I am not a nuclear physicist. But I have a clue about fireteam managing. You have your staff on site 24/7, true, but you also need backup staff in radius. Personnell would be enormous if you have full response on site 24/7, not even the government can do that.
treslibras wrote:
If things need to be monitored around the clock, and it is absolutey crucial for someone to be at a certain site to be able to fix things, and work needs to be done all the time, then you let them sit there. That is called a night shift or a weekend shift.
Correct. And units that cant cause radiation leaks need this too, my example of a major newspaper for instance. Just not so scary.
treslibras wrote:
If that is not the case, you keep people on call. Being on call means that you agree to have your private life disturbed in cases of emergency or for special assigments. How often that can be done and how long you need to rest afterwards is normally defined by law.
Actually with exception of areas where overwork can cause problems on emergency call means on emergency call. There is little actual limit.
treslibras wrote:
In any case, being on call does not mean that you revoke your right to a private life.
No one is saying otherwise. In fact people on these sorts of contracts have a much enhanced private life. Most are underworked because the criris team employed needs be far larger than the regular operating team.
treslibras wrote:
And your private life may not be monitored around the clock, unless ordered by a court.
If the contract says GPS and you agree to the terms and renumeration, so be it.
treslibras wrote:
That might be different in China, and one might say between NSA and Google, there is not much privacy left anyway. But most western democracies grant some measure of legal protection of the private life.
You are generally right, in most industries there is a lot of legal protection. However in some parts of the nuclear industry, not so sure. Automatically Appended Next Post: Eilif wrote: Orlanth wrote: Eilif wrote:
She needs to be reachable that's fine. Even if the job requires her to be able to reach the work within a certain time, then that's still no reason for the off-clock GPS. If she gets the call and can't make it in time then she get's punished/fired/fined, etc. However, making continual monitoring of personal time a condition of employment is probably not going to stand up in court.
Ok, lets make it easier to understand. Say she doesnt work in Intermex but at a nuclear power station...
Except she doesn't.
Point missed, just giving a clearer example of why someone might be in a role where they must be constantly contactable and proven within response range.
Even if you might not understand the need for a tech support person to be there ASAP, you will understand the need for a reactor technician.
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Post by: Forar
The hypothetical reactor tech needs to be reachable 24/7.
The reactor tech's boss doesn't need to know where that person is 24/7.
As was pointed out earlier, this is also generally (by my understanding) considered "on call". And there is a lot to being 'on call' for extended amounts of time, including compensation for the massive pain in the ass that it can be to ones life to have to be ready to drop everything at a moment's notice.
No one is arguing that there aren't jobs with unusual specifications and requirements.
Knowing where that person (or even just their work phone) is 24/7 is unreasonable and unnecessary.
She signed up for a job. Not a spot on Big Brother.
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Post by: d-usa
 Forar wrote:The hypothetical reactor tech needs to be reachable 24/7.
The reactor tech's boss doesn't need to know where that person is 24/7.
The hypothetical reactor tech has a piece a piece of equipment that can connect to the reactor remotely and control it as well as other critical infrastructure.
The hypothetical reactor tech needs that equipment to do her job.
The hypothetical nuclear power plant needs to be able to track the security of the equipment that could be used to control the reactor remotely.
She disabled a security feature on a piece of property that she did not own, that was stupid and she deserves to be fired for it. There are a lot of other steps she could have taken other than tampering with the security of a piece of property that belonged to her employer.
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Post by: Orlanth
Hypothetical reactor tech will be called out for a major event as often as a major leak. Last one in the Us was Three Mile Island in the 70's.
Hypethetical reactor tech might think it ok to bunk off to Canada to watch ice hockey, because she is rich enough to travel long distancs in her three days off.
Hypothetical reactor tech might be right that it is very unlikely to be called out on any given weekend, a major incident might even be once per career or less.
Hypothetical reactor tech might say she is within 50 miles of the reactorwhenever she is not on holiday, yet frequently goes to Canada because noone tracks her.
Hypothertical reactors techs boss doesnt have a GPS because of a lawsuit about another on call worker and so he he is never aware that his critical cover, well paid for I might add in hypothetical dollars is not in range to do squat if the board redlines and the on site staff are not enough to assist.
Hypothetical reactor techs boss might lose his job is the oversight gency for hypothetical reactors finds out he hasn't got the backup the legislation requires.
And hypothetical reactor town will be real pissed if the hypothetical reactor has an accident and key reactor staff are too far away to help in time.
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Post by: Dreadwinter
Hypothetical reactor tech works in an industry providing a public service. Hypothetical reactor tech endangers lives when they do not respond to calls.
This lady does not. Do you see the difference Orlanth?
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Post by: d-usa
But she does work in an industry handling lots of money and tampered with the security features on a piece of property that did not belong to her.
Being tracked 24/7 is BS, I agree with that. But she chose a very dumb way to deal with it and is paying the price.
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Post by: Peregrine
Hypothetical reactor owner decides to save money on salaries by employing too few on-site reactor techs to deal with an emergency before it becomes a disaster.
Hypothetical reactor owner puts the safety of everyone within range of their potential disaster at risk by creating a system where an employee saying "screw it, I'm too tired to come in" when their on-call phone rings (or gets into an accident driving to the reactor and dies) is a safety hazard instead of ensuring that safety will be maintained regardless of off-site employees showing up.
Hypothetical reactor owner takes full responsibility for any unfortunate consequences of their stupidity.
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Post by: A Town Called Malus
 Peregrine wrote:Hypothetical reactor owner decides to save money on salaries by employing too few on-site reactor techs to deal with an emergency before it becomes a disaster. Hypothetical reactor owner puts the safety of everyone within range of their potential disaster at risk by creating a system where an employee saying "screw it, I'm too tired to come in" when their on-call phone rings (or gets into an accident driving to the reactor and dies) is a safety hazard instead of ensuring that safety will be maintained regardless of off-site employees showing up. Hypothetical reactor owner takes full responsibility for any unfortunate consequences of their stupidity.
This. This hypothetical reactor owner also apparently has zero effective failsafes in place if their whole emergency procedure apparently relies on one single employee. The basic premise of the hypothetical reactor argument is so ludicrous that any attempt to use it to justify anything is laughable.
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Post by: Forar
Anyway, as was pointed out, we're dealing with an exceedingly rare set of 'ifs' here.
If this business needs to have someone available on RIGHT FETHING NOW notice, then they should pay people to bunk over at the building, Fireman style. Pay them a bonus, feed them well, and have like half a dozen of them that rotate in and out every few days. It's a burden but they get their people OMG READY TO GO and know where they are and nobody needs to be tagged 24/7 to do it.
Or have a selection of several such people with an understanding that 1 must ALWAYS be ready to go and sort that out in X hour 'shifts', preferably with mixed time zones so nobody is getting called at 2am.
If this is such a big money business with such vital needs, they can pay up for the right to have someone on call for long stretches of the day.
But if instead their boss just gets off on knowing where people are and watching them travel about their day, ooooh look, someone's at that bar again, I wonder if they'll end up home by the end of the night, or perhaps in a building they've never been before...
Yeah, no, that's not going to fly.
And for feth's sake, I'm pretty sure *ACTUAL REACTOR TECHS* don't have to deal with this bullgak. Presumably they have staff on duty 24/7, on-call specialists, etc.
That's a reason to carefully and very clearly sort out everyone's vacation schedule.
Not a reason to bloody microchip them.
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
I'd say the key thing here is not the monitoring app as there are jobs where it would be useful/essential (she knew what she was getting into when she signed up)
but the indications that management where discussing her private life activities with her co-workers... as long as she was wherever was OK based on her contact management has no right to talk about her out of hours stuff with anybody
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
It'll be interesting to see what the contract says, and whether it is permissible in CA. Personally I don't think it is reasonable that her employer can track her movements outside of work. It opens up the potential for highly unethical and abusive conduct. By all means ensure that you employees are contactable, but knowing what speed they are driving 3 hours after they are off the clock is an excessive intrusion.
Kilkrazy wrote:Personally I think all employees should be continually monitored for when and how much sex they have.
If you are having a lot of athletic sex, it increases the chance you may be too tired to work at full pace during company time.
But by the same token the employee's stress levels are probably a lot lower, and it does count as exercise so less sick days and healthier employees.
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Post by: Bromsy
D-Usa has the right of things. If she works off that phone the company has a strong interest in making sure it's secure. It sounds like the person is incidental frankly. They want to monitor the phone, you are obliged to keep the phone with you... Absent a douchey boss I see no problem, and even with one she handled the situation poorly and I would say the firing was just if not necessarily right.
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Post by: Dreadwinter
So, it is alright to fire somebody for removing an application that violated their personal time/privacy and gave her boss the ability to know where she is at all times of the day just because she signed a paper which clearly violates her right to privacy?
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Post by: Eilif
Stuff the "hypotheticals". She's not a Nuke Tech. I don't deny that there may be some job that requires you to be tracked, but If you want to discuss the requirements for such a job, start another thread.
 Dreadwinter wrote:So, it is alright to fire somebody for removing an application that violated their personal time/privacy and gave her boss the ability to know where she is at all times of the day just because she signed a paper which clearly violates her right to privacy?
This is the key. Just because she signed a paper, doesn't make it right or legal. It will clearly be up to the court to decide whether it is so, but there's a very good chance that they will say the company had no right to track her 24/7.
If you want the phone to be 100% secure, then have her leave it at the office.
If you want her to keep the phone with her 24/7, don't violate her privacy.
The company will likely have to reach a pretty high bar to prove that it was absolutely necessary for her to both have the phone and to be constantly trackable.
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Post by: d-usa
That depends on what they fired her for. If they fired her for not being trackable then the bar is high. If they fired her for tampering with company property the bar will be lower.
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Post by: Dreadwinter
Remember, part of her lawsuit claimed retaliation. That makes things more complicated.
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Post by: Forar
Employees (the boss?) making jokes about knowing her every move can't be helpful in any attempt to prove it was purely a business matter.
As part of my duties I can track thousands of people who work in roughly a dozen office towers. Depending on a few circumstances, I could probably tell you when they took lunch, when they went to the washroom, when they got in every morning and possibly even when they went home at night.
I would absolutely be gak-canned if I ever used/abused that system/knowledge. And joking with one of those employees about how I knew where she was all the time would probably be the first step in a long series of unpleasant conversations with HR (on my way out) and quite probably the police (I'm pretty sure there's federal or at least provincial privacy legislation I'd be walking all over doing so).
It's part of my job, but that doesn't mean it's my personal plaything. That information is a responsibility, and I treat it responsibly.
The idea of flaunting even more personal data, from outside work hours, when that person was off premises, for no reason but a laugh, is despicable. Even IF (biiiig IF) it's legal to compile such data off the clock, abusing it as described in the article originally linked treads well beyond simply having a security requirement for a job.
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Post by: d-usa
Forar wrote:Employees (the boss?) making jokes about knowing her every move can't be helpful in any attempt to prove it was purely a business matter.
As part of my duties I can track thousands of people who work in roughly a dozen office towers. Depending on a few circumstances, I could probably tell you when they took lunch, when they went to the washroom, when they got in every morning and possibly even when they went home at night.
I would absolutely be gak-canned if I ever used/abused that system/knowledge. And joking with one of those employees about how I knew where she was all the time would probably be the first step in a long series of unpleasant conversations with HR (on my way out) and quite probably the police (I'm pretty sure there's federal or at least provincial privacy legislation I'd be walking all over doing so).
It's part of my job, but that doesn't mean it's my personal plaything. That information is a responsibility, and I treat it responsibly.
The idea of flaunting even more personal data, from outside work hours, when that person was off premises, for no reason but a laugh, is despicable. Even IF (biiiig IF) it's legal to compile such data off the clock, abusing it as described in the article originally linked treads well beyond simply having a security requirement for a job.
But if I decided to somehow gain administrative privileges on my work desktop and delete or install software to circumvent the systems my company uses I would get fired since it's not my property to modify.
Don't get me wrong now, I think that she shouldn't be required to be live tracked 24/7. But her problem with the tracking didn't give her permission to modify her employer's equipment.
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Post by: Jihadin
Should have did a Snowden and stuck the cell in a fridge 
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Post by: Forar
Yeah, if I got administrative rights for my work laptop and decided to throw Steam on there, a pile of games, and disabled a couple of security features (like our truly aggressive firewall and anti-virus programs), I'd probably be talking to HR too.
What I think will be interesting is whether or not it's legal to track her in the first place. Given how screwed up the US legal system can be, I wouldn't expect it to protect her from every possible liability, but I'd also consider it a pretty extenuating circumstance as well.
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Post by: Bromsy
The question isn't going to be whether or not it's legal to track her, the question is going to be whether or not it's legal for a company to track it's property that just so happens to be something she is (probably) contractually obligated to keep on her person. And I have a pretty strong suspicion that that answer will be yes.
I'm pretty sure she is boned on this one. The proper way to do this would have been to file some HR complaint stuff and/or make a big deal about the boss's attitude and comments, and then when her douchebag boss fired her for that, sue. And she would have a much stronger case.
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Post by: Dreadwinter
She said something to her boss about them monitoring her off hours and it being illegal. Her boss told her she should allow them to do it anyways. Tampering with company equipment kinda went out the window when she asked that the gps service be off when she isn't on the clock and he said deal with it.
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Post by: Bromsy
That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
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Post by: d-usa
 Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
What about burning the place down?
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Post by: Bromsy
d-usa wrote: Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
What about burning the place down?
Well obviously that'd be fine.
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Post by: d-usa
Bromsy wrote: d-usa wrote: Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
What about burning the place down?
Well obviously that'd be fine.
Excellent...
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Post by: Jehan-reznor
What else does that app track? e-mails? photo's? access to camera, stalker bosses rejoice!
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Post by: Dreadwinter
Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
How about you take the breaks anyways? What happens then? I feel like that is much closer to what has happened. Stealing is a long stretch.
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Post by: Sasori
I have a Company Phone, and I have to keep it with me outside of work all the time.
There is an APP that can "Track" the phone, but it's not turned on 24/7. This would be used if it was stolen or something happened.
Having a Tracking APP on at all times like that is a pretty gross breach of privacy in my opinion. The fact that the boss mentioned he knows how fast she drives... I mean come on.
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Post by: Bromsy
Dreadwinter wrote: Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
How about you take the breaks anyways? What happens then? I feel like that is much closer to what has happened. Stealing is a long stretch.
No, because as I've been saying, the app's purpose is to track the phone, not the employee. That is incidental, despite how her douchey boss was talking. The phone is company property. She was aware that they wanted this app on the phone. Choosing to delete it was wrong.
Your boss being an insufferable douche does not mean that you then get to do whatever you want, that's some "two wrongs make a right." style argument. Make a stink with HR, maybe change company policy, maybe get fired anyways. Either way, at least you are in the right then, and people don't have to argue this crap on the internet.
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Post by: Dreadwinter
Bromsy wrote: Dreadwinter wrote: Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
How about you take the breaks anyways? What happens then? I feel like that is much closer to what has happened. Stealing is a long stretch.
No, because as I've been saying, the app's purpose is to track the phone, not the employee. That is incidental, despite how her douchey boss was talking. The phone is company property. She was aware that they wanted this app on the phone. Choosing to delete it was wrong.
Your boss being an insufferable douche does not mean that you then get to do whatever you want, that's some "two wrongs make a right." style argument. Make a stink with HR, maybe change company policy, maybe get fired anyways. Either way, at least you are in the right then, and people don't have to argue this crap on the internet.
How is she in the wrong exactly? She protected her right to privacy after her boss grossly infringed upon it and when she told him it was illegal, her direct supervisor, she was told to deal with it. She could have gone to HR and made a big stink of it, but how long does that take? How long will it take for the policy to get changed? Maybe it never does, maybe they decide that she can deal with it, like her boss said. Then where is she at?
Stop with the above it all attitude, this is the internet.
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Post by: d-usa
If your boss tells you to no longer look at Dakka at work you don't get to 'disagree' by changing the programs on your work computer.
She had lots of ways she could have addressed this, with all of which would probably still result in her getting fired at some point, which would have left her with better legal recourse. But the moment she started to mess with company property they had a legitimate reason for firing her.
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Post by: Bromsy
Dreadwinter wrote: Bromsy wrote: Dreadwinter wrote: Bromsy wrote:That isn't really how laws work. If my boss tells me I am no longer going to be allowed OSHA mandated breaks I don't get to start stealing office supplies.
How about you take the breaks anyways? What happens then? I feel like that is much closer to what has happened. Stealing is a long stretch.
No, because as I've been saying, the app's purpose is to track the phone, not the employee. That is incidental, despite how her douchey boss was talking. The phone is company property. She was aware that they wanted this app on the phone. Choosing to delete it was wrong.
Your boss being an insufferable douche does not mean that you then get to do whatever you want, that's some "two wrongs make a right." style argument. Make a stink with HR, maybe change company policy, maybe get fired anyways. Either way, at least you are in the right then, and people don't have to argue this crap on the internet.
How is she in the wrong exactly? She protected her right to privacy after her boss grossly infringed upon it and when she told him it was illegal, her direct supervisor, she was told to deal with it. She could have gone to HR and made a big stink of it, but how long does that take? How long will it take for the policy to get changed? Maybe it never does, maybe they decide that she can deal with it, like her boss said. Then where is she at?
Stop with the above it all attitude, this is the internet.
She is in the wrong for disabling security features on company property. I don't know how to boil this down any further than I have. Both parties were/are wrong. Her boss was a douche and should never have acted as he did. If she had done things right, this would be an open and shut case in her favor, she did not do things right. If she works for a financial company and does business on that phone, which is company property, they have a vested interest in keeping that phone secure. They are allowed to determine for themselves what they feel 'secure' is. She does not have the right to personally decide that the company is doing something illegal and take steps to remedy that herself. She was justly fired. If you tell your supervisor that they are doing something illegal and they blow you off, you do not then gain the right to resolve that issue however you see fit. That is silly.
This isn't an emotional issue, it is a legal one. Feeling like your privacy was violated is worth exactly dick all if you don't do anything to document it or pursue that through legal channels and your only action is to violate company policy.
That said, I'm sure she'll get at least some money out of this because it's cheaper to pay her to shut up than retain lawyers for long.
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Post by: Steve steveson
Bromsy wrote:
She is in the wrong for disabling security features on company property.
job-management Xora app
www.xora.com
Xora Mobile Workforce Management
As the leader in the mobile workforce management, Xora products enables businesses to better manage their field employees. Xora is the only solution built from ground up with best-in-class apps (maps, timesheets, forms, jobs, mileage) that are integrated to work together. Take a look at the various products Xora supports and see if one is right for you.
It's not a security app, its a workforce management app. The point IS to track employees, not the phone. It's not security. You can do that without an installed app with "find my iPhone". They installed this app specifically to track staff. She objected, her boss told her to "deal with it".
Bromsy wrote: If you tell your supervisor that they are doing something illegal and they blow you off, you do not then gain the right to resolve that issue however you see fit. That is silly.
Actually, in many cases, yes you do have an obligation to prevent illegal activity, both directly and indirectly. If my boss or my company is doing something illegal my professional ethics require me to not facilitate it, report it and if possible take action to prevent it. Same with many professions, and I could lose my accreditation if I do not. If my boss told me to give someone a bribe I would be well within my rights to refuse, report it and block the account to prevent him getting someone else to do it. Now, this case is not that clear cut, but we don't know what action she took as there is scant detail on exactly what form the complaints to the company took or the situation regarding apps on the phone, but it is not a case of "do what your boss tells you", especially at higher levels.
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Post by: Bromsy
 Steve steveson wrote: Bromsy wrote:
She is in the wrong for disabling security features on company property.
job-management Xora app
www.xora.com
Xora Mobile Workforce Management
As the leader in the mobile workforce management, Xora products enables businesses to better manage their field employees. Xora is the only solution built from ground up with best-in-class apps (maps, timesheets, forms, jobs, mileage) that are integrated to work together. Take a look at the various products Xora supports and see if one is right for you.
It's not a security app, its a workforce management app. The point IS to track employees, not the phone. It's not security. You can do that without an installed app with "find my iPhone". They installed this app specifically to track staff. She objected, her boss told her to "deal with it".
Bromsy wrote: If you tell your supervisor that they are doing something illegal and they blow you off, you do not then gain the right to resolve that issue however you see fit. That is silly.
Actually, in many cases, yes you do have an obligation to prevent illegal activity, both directly and indirectly. If my boss or my company is doing something illegal my professional ethics require me to not facilitate it, report it and if possible take action to prevent it. Same with many professions, and I could lose my accreditation if I do not. If my boss told me to give someone a bribe I would be well within my rights to refuse, report it and block the account to prevent him getting someone else to do it. Now, this case is not that clear cut, but we don't know what action she took as there is scant detail on exactly what form the complaints to the company took or the situation regarding apps on the phone, but it is not a case of "do what your boss tells you", especially at higher levels.
Tracking the location of the work phone is de facto security. Do you really think they won't make that argument in arbitration? And this isn't a clearly illegal thing. This is not telling her she must keep child porn on her work phone or else, this is her feeling like her privacy was being violated and deciding she didn't have to do that. As has been pointed out, there were multiple ways to handle this that wouldn't have involved her taking the offensive app off her phone and each of them would have been a better solution and left her with a stronger case for recompense and/or changed the policy for the betterment of all.
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Post by: PhantomViper
 Jehan-reznor wrote:What else does that app track? e-mails? photo's? access to camera, stalker bosses rejoice!
Don't use your company phone for sexting? 
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
It seems from the arricle that discussions were had with her boss to complain about the intrusion and she effectively told to put up with it whatever the legality. We don't know what other actions she took prior to her removing the software from the phone, she may have taken several of the steps outlined by other people.
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Post by: Steve steveson
Bromsy wrote: Steve steveson wrote: Bromsy wrote:
She is in the wrong for disabling security features on company property.
job-management Xora app
www.xora.com
Xora Mobile Workforce Management
As the leader in the mobile workforce management, Xora products enables businesses to better manage their field employees. Xora is the only solution built from ground up with best-in-class apps (maps, timesheets, forms, jobs, mileage) that are integrated to work together. Take a look at the various products Xora supports and see if one is right for you.
It's not a security app, its a workforce management app. The point IS to track employees, not the phone. It's not security. You can do that without an installed app with "find my iPhone". They installed this app specifically to track staff. She objected, her boss told her to "deal with it".
Bromsy wrote: If you tell your supervisor that they are doing something illegal and they blow you off, you do not then gain the right to resolve that issue however you see fit. That is silly.
Actually, in many cases, yes you do have an obligation to prevent illegal activity, both directly and indirectly. If my boss or my company is doing something illegal my professional ethics require me to not facilitate it, report it and if possible take action to prevent it. Same with many professions, and I could lose my accreditation if I do not. If my boss told me to give someone a bribe I would be well within my rights to refuse, report it and block the account to prevent him getting someone else to do it. Now, this case is not that clear cut, but we don't know what action she took as there is scant detail on exactly what form the complaints to the company took or the situation regarding apps on the phone, but it is not a case of "do what your boss tells you", especially at higher levels.
Tracking the location of the work phone is de facto security. Do you really think they won't make that argument in arbitration? And this isn't a clearly illegal thing. This is not telling her she must keep child porn on her work phone or else, this is her feeling like her privacy was being violated and deciding she didn't have to do that. As has been pointed out, there were multiple ways to handle this that wouldn't have involved her taking the offensive app off her phone and each of them would have been a better solution and left her with a stronger case for recompense and/or changed the policy for the betterment of all.
It's not a security app though. Is a workforce tracking app. It's not sold as a security app. What use is a tracking app that can be removed, especially when smartphones have built in security tracking. Calling it a security thing is nonsense and just trying to justify what the company were doing. I don't know what arguments were made, I didn't make any comments about what arguments were made when, just saying that your discription of the app as security was wrong.
You gave an absolute saying:
Bromsy wrote: If you tell your supervisor that they are doing something illegal and they blow you off, you do not then gain the right to resolve that issue however you see fit. That is silly.
And as I said, we don't know what action was taken. Perhaps she felt it was the only way to get action, or perhaps she didn't think there would be any repercussions and the company rather than saying "your not aloud to do that. Put the app back on" just sacked her on the spot. We don't know the details and giving the absolute you did is wrong.
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Post by: Easy E
Just for the record, this lady was an outside salesperson.
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Post by: Dreadwinter
Not sure why people keep bringing this up as a security feature. If you lose your phone or have it stole, it is an iPhone. They can track and find it for you. The company probably has encryption software on it to prevent personal information. It's a pretty flimsy argument.
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Post by: Bullockist
Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
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Post by: Easy E
 Bullockist wrote:Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
No reason except corporate control for the sake of corporate control! That's a pretty good reason right?
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Post by: Frazzled
 Easy E wrote: Bullockist wrote:Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
No reason except corporate control for the sake of corporate control! That's a pretty good reason right?
And now we see why unions still are needed in many ways.
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Post by: kronk
 Frazzled wrote: Easy E wrote: Bullockist wrote:Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
No reason except corporate control for the sake of corporate control! That's a pretty good reason right?
And now we see why unions still are needed in many ways.
I don't think there is a salesperson union in the US.
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Post by: Frazzled
kronk wrote: Frazzled wrote: Easy E wrote: Bullockist wrote:Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
No reason except corporate control for the sake of corporate control! That's a pretty good reason right?
And now we see why unions still are needed in many ways.
I don't think there is a salesperson union in the US.
Sounds like an opportunity for a good saleswoman!
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Bullockist wrote:Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
Of course there is a reason. You can see if she eats at McDonald's a lot and whether that will eventually affect your company's insurance contributions. If she is out drinking most nights you can see that she may have a problem and not work as hard the next day, or why she comes in late. If she is single and always at a married man's house then you have leverage
[/sarc]
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Post by: boyd
Based on the article, I need some more information.
Does she driver own vehicle or does she have a company vehicle? I would argue that the company has the ability to track her driving habits in their vehicle.
Next, it is a company paid phone and if you signed an affidavit not to change the software required to perform your job function then you can be terminated. If you don't like the GPS tracking, then leave the phone at home. Based on the job description from the original article, she is a sales person. Not IT, not a doctor, and not someone who needs to be on call. Just get your own personal phone and use it when you get off work.
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Post by: Forar
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/13/8597081/worker-gps-fired-myrna-arias-xora "A woman in California claims to have been fired from her job after uninstalling an app on her smartphone that her employer used to track her movements 24 hours a day. Myrna Arias, a former employee of money transfer firm Intermex, says she was told to keep her phone on at all times and was dismissed weeks after being "scolded" for uninstalling the app. She's now suing Intermex for violating her privacy and wrongful termination, among other allegations. "[Arias' boss] Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty, and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she had installed the app on her phone," reads the complaint, filed in Kern County Superior Court and spotted by ArsTechnica. "[Arias] expressed that she had no problem with the app’s GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours," says the filing. "She likened the app to a prisoner’s ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion because Intermix was paying [her more than her previous employer]." When Arias complained to Stubits, he told her that she was required to keep her phone powered on throughout the day. The app — Xora StreetSmart — is intended to let companies manage employees working away from the office. Its creators, ClickSoftware, says it lets firms "see the location of every mobile worker on a Google Map." However, ClickSoftware doesn't seem to envision the app as a 24-hour tracker, telling potential clients that "field employees" should launch the app "when [they] start their day." Arias is currently suing Intermex for damages "in excess of $500,000" for lost earnings and wages, with her filing stating that "this intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person." Intermex could not be reached for comment at the time of writing." Emphasis mine. This seems to put several lines of conversation to rest. She was expected to always have the phone, and to have it powered on. When confronted, they basically said "we're paying you more, suck it up", and the app creators themselves note that it's for tracking employees during work hours, not for security. Surely GPS-tagging someone without their consent is illegal in the US? I assume so, at least based on the massive gakstorm that has come up in the past regarding Law Enforcement doing exactly that to people's cars.
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Post by: daedalus
Forar wrote:
Surely GPS-tagging someone without their consent is illegal in the US? I assume so, at least based on the massive gakstorm that has come up in the past regarding Law Enforcement doing exactly that to people's cars.
Well, yes, but you give that consent when you start working there. You may or may not realize it. That's the way a lot of practices are here.
That doesn't make them right. What makes it worse are the hardworking members of the prole that love their corporate overlords so much they'll jump to accusing someone of being a 'pinko commie' or whatever if they try to object or make trouble over it.
I hope she does very well. These people need to be reigned in a little.
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
It's a funny thing to give consent to. Is it specifically in her contract? I'm sure having a phone is, but did it explicitly say that she had to agree to being tracked at all times or was that something they tried to slip on when getting a new phone or somesuch? The idea that you can be told to 'put up with an illegal intrusion or leave your job' is ridiculous. What's the point in even having laws if companies can easily get away with browbeating employees with threats against their job if they don't 'agree' to illegal surveillance? Absurd.
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Post by: Desubot
Is it really illegal if there are laws for it?
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Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured
You can't (at least in the UK) be asked to sign a contract to do something that is, in itself, illegal,
and if you do the contact (or just that part of it is void)
so it would all hang on whether a judge decided the intial contact was legal
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Post by: Orlanth
Dreadwinter wrote:Hypothetical reactor tech works in an industry providing a public service. Hypothetical reactor tech endangers lives when they do not respond to calls.
This lady does not. Do you see the difference Orlanth?
Indeed, the point of a reactor tech was brought up so you might understand. I am already there.
Jobs exist that require rapid reaction, some have jobs that react to prevent danger to life - you understand that.
Some have jobs that react to prevent losses of the company concerned - this you evidently still don't understand.
If renumeration is there for a worker to be on call then those are contracted terms.
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
Well she could still be available by phone even if they don't track her whereabouts. You'd never hang all that responsibility on one person anyway. What if they couldn't respond to the phone due to illness/accident or because they had no phone signal at that moment? It's just a ludicrous example. 'Oh no she's in a building with thick walls, I guess the town will just have to be destroyed.'
What it boils down to is that the company just doesn't trust her to follow her contract and be an available distance away outside work hours. At some point you have to trust people, you don't get to invade their privacy and spy on their whereabouts at all times. It's not reasonable. I suggest if it is a trust issue the company employ someone else that they do trust instead. But I suspect that they wouldn't do this, they want to spy regardless. Lots of jobs have expectations of conduct outside of work hours but it doesn't mean they should be allowed to monitor employees at all times. Be available yes, but your private time should be just that.
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Post by: sebster
I think we're making a lot of assumptions in thinking this is about her being potentially on call outside of work hours. She's a sales exec, and while that often involves working with client relationships outside of work hours, it isn't really a crisis management kind of deal where you have to be ready just in case. It's schmoozing and other nonsense, typically organised well ahead of time.
It's more likely this app is about tracking and quanitfying the amount of work done outside of normal hours - monitoring to see who is spending hours outside of work with current and potential clients.
I have no idea whether that's illegal, but it's almost certainly a bad idea, a really chronic case of micromanagement.
Orlanth wrote:That would involve either.
- Phoning them all the time.
- Taking a risk they are where they say they are. In an industry that can't take risks.
Mostly it involves active management - both parties talking about future availability during off work hours. "I will be on call the next three weekends, but the weekend after that I want to travel out of state and won't be available." "Can't give you that weekend as Tommy is already unavailable, but the weekend after is fine."
The idea of needing an app to check on people who are on call is fairly ridiculous. Automatically Appended Next Post: Bullockist wrote:Steve has the right of it. She was a salesperson (judging by this thread i think she must have sold nuclear reactors), if she can hit her targets she can do whatever the feth she wants - it's sales. There is no viable reason to track where she is.
Over the last 20 odd years people have been slowly figuring out that simply tracking sales is a pretty crappy metric of an employee's performance, and lots of new metrics have been added since. The problem is that not all sales are the same - lots are made to whales - big, regular buyers who don't need a lot selling - they know your product and know what they want it for and you just have to book the order each month. Looking purely a sales means a guy with a couple of whale customer on his roster looks amazing, while a guy that lacks a whale or two looks bad, even if he's out there every month meeting 50 potential clients a month and adding two or three as clients.
So they look at tracking contact time with buyers (total & new), sales to new customers, sales increases to existing clients, stuff like that.
I suspect this may be part of such an effort - tracking the number of times she met with with buyers, including outside of normal work hours.
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