The Daily Telegraph is bringing new meaning to the phrase “chained to your desk” after installing heat and movement sensors beneath workstations to track when staff are at their desks.
Employees at the newspaper arrived at work earlier this month to find black monitoring boxes beneath their desks with no prior warning from their employer. The newspaper later explained that the boxes were to be used to track office space in order to plan more efficient energy usage. However, the explanation came too late to salvage employees’ trust and, after facing a barrage of criticism and suspicion of “big brother” style monitoring, the newspaper backtracked and removed the devices.