Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the transition of many offices to remote work has led to new ways for employers to track workers’ movements, behavior, and productivity. Through their SSRC-funded research, Jessica Vitak and Michael Zimmer surveyed remote workers in the US about perceptions of current workplace monitoring practices. They argue that worker concerns about reductions in privacy and independence at work might have negative outcomes on worker productivity, satisfaction, and well-being.
Michael Zimmer
Michael Zimmer, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Marquette University and is an affiliated faculty at the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute. He is a privacy and data ethics scholar who uses mixed methods to help reveal the social and ethical dimensions of our contemporary digital ecosystem, with a particular focus on digital privacy & surveillance, internet research ethics, and social & ethical computing.