Inside-Logger Blog

I was reading the other day a new version of the idea, or roomer if you prefer, that Microsoft could get involved in the “spy” software niche. Microsoft has already advanced a patent application for a computer system through which the employees should all be part of a wireless “spider” network that would monitor their metabolic features. I must add here that such an idea can raise one or two eyebrows in the Human Rights backyard and I can’t help myself to notice that Microsoft could now join in full daylight the Orwellian ideas that wonder around in our times. The evaluation of a worker based on a computer assessment of their mental and physical state it’s maybe too much, as unions also say.

The other facet of the issue could be that Microsoft has quietly developed such cutting edge technology that allows the proposed system to read without difficulty any sign of “frustration or stress in the user” and “offer and provide assistance accordingly”. So are we talking here about AI technology, or really advanced pre-android systems? We’re in the 21st century so I would rather vote for the latter. I don’t think it’s just my opinion, but the general public is totally not aware of the extraordinary achievements of the governmental scientist.

Peter Skyte declared at the time: “This system takes the idea of monitoring people at work to a new level with a new level of invasiveness but in a very old-fashioned way because it monitors what is going in rather than the results.” But the whole affair was swapped under the rock and the approval of the patent is in course of completion.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said: “Imposing this level of intrusion on employees could only be justified in exceptional circumstances.” And I might add today… What exactly are those exceptional circumstances? Aren’t we looking right now at a USA that easily matches such an exceptional circumstance? I would say that the ground is set.

Microsoft refused to comment this issue, but if the giant is interested in a rather niche business, it can only reveal the great potential it holds, and nevertheless a dangerous potential that we could all experience in a rather unpleasant way.