Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Big brother is watching

Talk about paranoid! There's chismis going around the office that management has installed surveillance cams in the premises! Apparently, there's been a lot of theft of magazines (among other things) in marketing and advertising that the bosses felt the need to install cams. It's so surreal, I feel like I'm in Pinoy Big Brother without the P4 million prize! But can you imagine the ramifications of what my office did, if it's true? And I'm leaning toward believing that it really is true. Lord knows, I wouldn't put it past them to do something this crazy! At the very least, it's a violation of basic human rights. They should have informed us that they were putting in surveillance cams. Not informing us is a violation of our rights. And even if they did tell us, it's somehow still wrong!

Anyway, I'm sad/glad I'll be out of here end of next week!

Comments:
oh boy...you sure they aren't monitoring your computer?
 
I know they are. I don't care. I'm leaving na eh
 
Oh well... Obviously, companies don't regard surveillance as a violation of their employees' privacy. The justification is that they have to protect their material resources and intellectual property (mainly information, which is "priceless" harhar). I learned this from my previous employer, a big company that was veddy much concerned about IP and its effects on competition. Big Brother knew all the websites we surfed, had access to our individual e-mailboxes, and read all our online conversations. It was annoying sometimes but we poor workers didn't have a choice. And now I'm going to a country where the rules are much more stringent. But that's where the money is so... ;->
 
The funny thing was despite the presence of surveillance cameras all over that office, somebody always managed to pinch the "chichiria" left by other people in the fridge! I guess Big Brother never bothered to solve the case of the mysterious pantry thief. :-D
 
Legally, a company has a right to put up surveillance cameras, read employee email, chat records, basically do anything it wants with company property. Whether it's acting ethically in doing this, however, is a completely different matter. Sadly, what's legal and what's ethical don't always overlap...
 
as in all things, there are no absolutes
 
install surveillance cameras around your perimeter. if they ask why, tell them that you need it to monitor surveillance cameras. i'm sure this will help make the situation even more surreal if not utterly ridiculous. start an arms race
 
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