Technology versus privacy: finding the right balance

All technologies that in one way or another invade your privacy rest on the premise that the benefits of such breaches outweigh the demerits.

While this argument is often used to defend government snooping it is obviously also acceptable in private enterprise. See Hewlett-Packard.

But I bring this up following a much smaller bit of news. It is the announcement from Control Module Inc. [CMI] that they are introducing the first RFID tags for workforce management.

The tags “identify, track, monitor and protect people and assets,” says the press release.

As always we need to ask who are they protecting and from what?

On the plus side the RFID tags can protect workers by using what is called “machine control.” In other words, a dangerous piece of equipment cannot be operated by an unauthorized employee.

The authorization resides in the RFID tag in the sense that the tag has an employee number which is matched to say a directory which says whether or not the employee is allowed to operate the equipment, like a fork lift truck. If unauthorized the truck won’t start.

Of course in case of emergency when an unauthorized person might need to start a piece of equipment there could be a problem.

The tags also track employee start and stop times which basically replaces a time clock.

But the RFID tag can also track location. If a worker spends too much time at the water fountain or too much time on a particular task when management thinks they should be moving to the next task, it can all be measured, analyzed and appropriate action taken.

Then there is loss prevention which tracks not only the location of inventory but also can tell if an unauthorized person is leaving the premises with a piece of equipment.

Here’s my gripe.

In our constant effort to create perfect systems by using technology we are in danger of dehumanizing people.

Technology, at least to date, still measures things as on and off, black and white, and therefore right or wrong. But people aren’t like that.

Many years ago I had a friend who worked in a retail art supply store. He told wonderful stories about the characters he met, both as customers and fellow employees.

One particular salesman my friend told me about used to steal small amounts of money from the cash register. Of course management knew about it but they never fired him because he was just about the best salesman they ever had.

As long as he kept it under control, $5.00 here, maybe a tenner right before the weekend, they figured he brought more in than he took.

I don’t think we have the technology that can make the kind of decision that the manager of the art supply store made. I fear we will give up our ability to make these kinds of human decisions if we rely solely on technology to make our decisions for us.