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Would you wear a body cam at work?

If body cams get cheaper and cheaper, companies might start asking more people to wear them while working.

E.g.: coloradosun.com/…/youth-corrections-audio-surveil…

I could see this for doctors, at restaurants, stores,, etc… eventually.

Are you ready to wear one?

EDIT TO ADD: A few people said this wouldn’t ever make sense for doctors (privacy laws) or for fixed locations (stores). I should have thought of that.

But what about Uber / bus drivers, or repair people who go into homes? I can imagine a large corporation thinking a cam is a good idea, for their own CYA (not for the customers’ or the employees’).

Also I don’t like this idea either, to be clear. I was mostly playing devil’s advocate here to see what you all think. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Pretty much what I expected, tbh

communism ,
@communism@lemmy.ml avatar

In the jobs I work at, no, I wouldn’t. Body cams would only be used to snitch on people. It makes sense for surveillance to be used over people in positions of power like cops, doctors, prison guards, etc, who are known for abusing their power. Not against ordinary people or members of the public though. If retail workers wear bodycams, it’s to snitch on shoplifters. If teachers wear bodycams it’d compromise kids who approach them to tell them something in confidence. Etc.

shinigamiookamiryuu ,

I literally work for what amounts to a media business, giving me a body cam would be like giving ice to an eskimo.

cm0002 ,

Body cams can already be had for cheap Electronics wise, they’re not complicated or special. Yet, they’re still not in widespread use beyond police.

The reason police body cams are pricey is because 1) “military/police grade” rip-off premium pricing and 2) The housing has to be designed to be waterproof, shockproof, dust proof etc because of what they do on a day to day.

A retail worker is not going to need this level of “proofing” because they’re not running through an alley or something in their day to day

Death_Equity ,

Absolutely not. You can justify it with whatever reasoning you want, but it would be used against employees far more than it helps employees.

earlgrey0 ,

Preach. It wasn’t body cams but our company gave us all mandatory phones with custom location tracking software on them. It was done as part of their pandemic response. The phones were supposedly only tracking your location within a mile of the site and were only used for enforcing social distancing and infection tracking. Well when the return to office mandates came around, upper management was suddenly too informed about how much time we spent onsite. They swore up and down it wasn’t the phones and went to pretty absurd lengths to find some other metric to prove it.

Death_Equity ,

If I had to deal with that, the phone would be in a faraday box with a router that connected to a VPN that cycled servers every 24hrs.

Every day they would think I was in a different country.

earlgrey0 ,

There’s a reason why they’re my former employer. Upper management was discussing replacing our badges with the phone. We needed the phones to get into the building because that was where the covid protocol pass was kept and security checked. It was impressive how quickly they took advantage of the pandemic to make creepy breeches in privacy.

mayo_cider ,
@mayo_cider@hexbear.net avatar

I refuse to use camera in meetings

Barx ,

The company you work for is not your friend. If it is their body can they will use it to their benefit. Any benefit you receive will be incidental or simply part if their propaganda to get you to wear it for them.

It will be used, primarily, to surveil employees. They will track your habits and ensure you are aware that every single thing you do for your shift is something your boss or their boss or their boss can come back to you with and reprimand you for. They will try to set performance targets that can be compared to your videos so they can tell you what an algorithm or a petty middle manager says you are doing wrong. Too much time helping a customer. You’re not folding clothes fast enough. Walk faster. No sitting. They will set keywords. Union. Break. Curse words. Your bosses’ names. They might not even review these things. The intimidation is enough. Maybe you’ll get new policies. See that black guy? Follow him. Get video. The algorithm said to do it so it can’t be racist. We’ll pass it along to the cops.

Companies wouldn’t pay for it if they didn’t see a business angle and the obvious ones are control over employees and being able to use more video for “liability” defense.

aviation_hydrated ,

Suggestions to buy bodycams that aren’t WiFi/Bluetooth?

bss03 ,

Depends on the pay differential and other options. I think it’s less useful for positions in my career, but it’s not an absolute no.

NoneYa ,

No, I’m still salty they decided we should be on camera for meetings all of a sudden at my job. It’s so pointless and stupid to force us into. Thankfully it hasn’t been strictly enforced but most of us try to comply some of the times. Some mornings I’m too damned tired and don’t want to be seen yawning a bunch or like how it really is, that I literally rolled out of bed a few minutes ago to start my shift.

When I first came to this job, I remember joining a meeting and turned on my camera for someone to tell me “we don’t do that here” and it felt great to not have that stupid corporate pressure for something so trivial at the time.

I can understand wanting to make sure your employees are who they say they are and ensuring they are doing the job they are being paid to do. On the second part, that should be evident by the fact their work is being done. A camera wouldn’t change it for the lazy employees. They would find ways to appear busy on camera and micro managers would find a new way to micro manage people again. On the former, this would be evident with individual meetings on an ongoing basis between employee and direct supervisor.

Neither are necessarily solved by the constant use of a camera, at least where I work.

I suppose there are some jobs where a camera would be beneficial. We all came here with the idea of police officers which makes sense as a precaution for both the cop and the public they work with. (It should) keep everyone accountable and ensure things are being done as they should. But we see even that isn’t necessarily happening. We still get the “oops my camera conveniently tuned itself off during the time they claimed I abused their rights :( ”

brokenlcd ,

are you ready to wear one?

I’m ready to make an elton john style jacket full of infrared leds

neidu2 , (edited )

What’s stopping you? You do you.

c0smokram3r ,
@c0smokram3r@midwest.social avatar

I fucking love this idea!!!

rustyfish ,
@rustyfish@lemmy.world avatar

Sure. Why not? It will probably work like it does with US police officers, magically turning off right before the murder takes place self defence happens.

Seriously, I wouldn’t care at all. But it’s still a stupid idea and I would strongly oppose it. Even if only in solidarity with people it would fuck over.

neidu2 ,

“Self defence”

Plot twist: you work at Home Depot.

reagansrottencorpse ,

Hell no, cops however should have less control over the cameras they wear.

neidu2 , (edited )

I’ve actually considered it, mainly because it’d be useful for me to document what I do and how while keeping my hands free.

My job involves a lot of hardware troubleshooting, and when people ask me a year later when and how some specific issue was resolved, it’d be a whole lot easier to check the tape.

Yes, taking notes is possible, but when you’re troubleshooting an industrial system, and downtime costs 40.000$ per hour, updating your diary isn’t exactly a priority.

I don’t really have much of a privacy aspect to worry about - the only time it’d be beneficial for anyone would be while doing field work, and at that time I usually have 10-20 people waiting on me anyway.

I haven’t found a durable camera that I can wear discreetly, though.

Aganim ,

Absolutely not, as that would mean my company violates my country’s privacy laws. In my field of work there is no valid reason for wearing a body cam.

magnetosphere ,
@magnetosphere@fedia.io avatar

Absolutely not. I like my current job, but if body cams became mandatory, I’d quit. I’d get ready to leave if they were ever even “tested” at another location.

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