Study shows: Employers share employee data for advertising

A study by the Center for Law and the Economy at Columbia Law School examined software used by employers to track their employees. All applications investigated also share data with external companies such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft – a serious data protection problem for employees.

The study, led by Stephanie Nguyen, a Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School and former Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission under Lina Khan, examined nine services. For this purpose, the researchers analyzed information such as terms of use and privacy policies. Additionally, they intercepted network traffic using an open-source tool to see what data was being transferred to which other services. This included information such as employees' names, email addresses, IP addresses, and companies, as well as data about their online activities, including the websites they visited. Three of the nine platforms examined were also able to track employees' exact location – even when the app was running in the background.

Other programs affected?

The study has now proven data leakage for nine services. These included Apploye, Hubstaff, and When I Work – all programs that record employee activities, such as working hours. It can be assumed that numerous other applications have similar data collection practices. This is because many common sub-services, such as Firebase Crashlytics – a free tool for crash reports that developers can easily integrate into apps – send data to Google for analysis and marketing purposes by default. This can be activated and deactivated by programmers, but it is not clear how many do so.

The problem goes far beyond marketing. Numerous digital applications – especially the “free” ones – track the online behavior of their users. This data is often automatically compiled into a profile on global data trading exchanges, enabling very precise statements to be made about individuals. Offline services such as insurance companies, banks, and even intelligence agencies are showing increasing interest in these datasets. As are recruitment agencies. Some companies are already using the analysis data available online on data trading exchanges to assess, for example, whether an applicant is diligent or has an increased risk of becoming seriously ill soon. The study's authors warn that data on workplace behavior could contribute to creating a “shadow economy of employee reputation” that follows people long after they leave the company. And thus influence which positions they can get in the future.

The Verge attempted to obtain statements from the nine companies. Only two responded to the request.

Anyone who wants to check if such software is running on their own work computer can find practical tips in our tips for detecting surveillance programs.

(dahe)