As a rule of thumb — assume you’re being watch when using a work-issued device.

Covid completely changed our lives. In terms of the world of work, global quarantine impacted productivity — and even more so, perceived productivity.

With billions of employees not being under their bosses’ watchful eye, those same bosses needed to feel a sense of security knowing that their employees weren’t slacking off. Enter: employee monitoring technology, or more colloquially ‘bossware‘.

A 2021 report showed that 80% of companies are tracking their remote or hybrid workers. However, even prior to the pandemic, workers were often asked to download some kind of spyware on their computers.

Let’s analyze how employee monitoring software works, what it’s used for, and why it’s problematic both on ethical and practical level.

How employee monitoring software works

At its core, employee monitoring software serves to ‘manage productivity’. In other words, tracking what employees are doing at every moment is supposed to lead to higher productivity and less lazying around. Just knowing that they may be watched and assessed may ‘motivate’ potential troublemakers to be on their best behavior.

But what does this software do, exactly? According to the article by MadeUseOf, out of the 26 most popular monitoring software:

• 81% record keystrokes on your keyboard
• 61% monitor messaging in real time
• 65% alert the employer on all of your actions (opening/closing apps, sending messages, logging into websites…)
• 38% have remote control capabilities (someone else can control your computer like you, block/allow software, and access all of the data)

If this sounds like Orwellian surveillance, that’s because it is.

Is bossware legal?

Depending on where in the world you work and live, bossware (or certain types of it) may be illegal.

• Brian Honan, a cybersecurity consultant and former advisor at Europol, told the CNBC that monitoring software features like logging keystrokes and taking screenshots may not be legal under European Union’s GDPR regulations, given the sheer quantity of information they accumulate.
• In the United States, most monitoring methods are legal, and the federal legislation doesn’t require employers do disclose monitoring activity to workers. If you work in the U.S. you can read more about the specifics here.
• Asian countries have their own rules. Same for other continents.

If you’re worried that your employer is overstepping their boundaries, make sure to check your local regulations.

Does employee monitoring work?

The main issue with employee tracking software is that it doesn’t work most of the time, and instead erodes employee trust. Instead of working, employees will be focused on ‘gaming’ the system.

The issue is, the rate at which an employee is typing or moving their mouse won’t affect how ‘productive’ they are, as even the most basic desk jobs require some form of focus and thinking. Developers are known to spend most of their time thinking about programming solutions, away from their keyboard. Shallow metrics like time tracking and words typed don’t capture the quality of work, only quantity. Most importantly, this level of privacy invasion removes ‘humanity’ from workers. To illustrate my point, here’s an excerpt from the PC Magazines’s article on The Best Employee Monitoring Software for 2021:

“Automation and the ability to set alerts by way of email reminders and warnings are also effective ways to manage a large, distributed workforce. This activity data can also be aggregated on a macro level in real-time admin and manager dashboards. You should also be able to construct detailed reports to slice and dice your various productivity metrics. You can drill down into the data using factors such as the most productive or unproductive employees, or compare team or departmental efficiency or productivity on specific projects”.

This is not to put down the author of this article, as they were simply doing their job and reviewing products. What I would like you to take away is that this is what companies are looking for: measuring worker performance like they’re a hardware benchmark.

A massive security risk

There are times when these recordings catch unconsenting third-parties like children or the employee’s spouse. In some cases, they can even cause legal liability if sensitive data like health information gets picked up.

Another question is, where is all of this data stored, and who can access it?

Even if the employer doesn’t misuse this information, unless the data is provably deleted afterwards (it rarely is), the privacy and security problems don’t disappear.

In April 2020, the U.S. government reported a 400% increase in cyber attacks compared to pre-COVID times. The problems are still there in 2026. In 2025, Cybernews reported that 21 million images recorded by WorkComposer bossware were exposed.

In a successful data breach, a cyber attacker can get all of the company’s collected data, such as IDs, passwords, personal information of the employees and their familes, security footage, bank information, and much more.

A moral gray area

Many employers tend to make the argument that they do not install monitoring software without their employees’ consent. However, this argument chooses to ignore the inherent power dynamic between an employer and an employee.

Presented with the options of either installing the monitoring software or potentially losing their job, most will pick the former option. In a time of crisis, people tend to cling to their jobs more, and feel thankful that they can still pay their rent and put food on the table.

Of course, not all employers are created equal. Some employers pressure their workers to give ‘consent’. The NBC News article from early August 2021 reports that the workers of one of the world’s largest call centers, Teleperformance, were allegedly coerced to install home surveillance cameras, where both their rooms and their families would be recorded.

Bottom line

Surveillance at work has evolved alongside advancements in technology.

New and shinier ways of watching employees. From old-school monitoring visited websites and logging keystrokes, to AI face-recognition cameras and geo-location bracelets, new bossware toys go on the market every other week — and with them, they bring renewed questions about where the line should be drawn between effective work and trampling on human dignity.

For employees that have to use monitoring software, please make sure not to use your personal computer for work if possible, update your passwords regularly, back up your files and use antivirus software to detect potential security breaches. At best, keep your work on your work computer and don’t mix your personal and work accounts. It will bring you both a peace of mind and a more secure digital life.