[HN Gopher] Microsoft introduces ways of detecting "leavers" in ...
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Microsoft introduces ways of detecting "leavers" in email
Author : easton
Score : 60 points
Date : 2022-06-02 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| bpiche wrote:
| Didn't they acquire Yammer a few years ago? That was a prototype
| for surveillance social media, if you ask me.
| lasereyes136 wrote:
| Don't use your work computer for non-work related things,
| especially looking for another job. Get another computer for your
| personal use. The company owns those company assets and can do
| with them what they want. You don't have an expectation of
| privacy on your company computer.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| No you don't. But you do have a working relationship with your
| colleagues which is increasingly digital (don't forget the huge
| shift to WFH!) and thus all captured and analysed by software
| like this.
|
| Such human relationships may include banter which may be about
| how you might like the look of the canteen girl, about
| frustration at processes, about going for dinner with a vendor.
|
| All things which would be flagged under this. This is not your
| regular "personal use" web usage monitoring which we've all
| come to loathe.
| arroz wrote:
| Yeah i don't do any of the things you said when using the
| companies computer and I WFH It is okay to ask for people's
| WhatsApp / Facebook and so on to talk about this sort of
| stuff
| warning26 wrote:
| This seems like a vast oversimplification to absolve Microsoft
| of any wrongdoing here.
|
| Companies _shouldn 't_ be able to access 1:1 correspondence
| between employees without some kind of complex legal process
| first, IMO.
| nicbou wrote:
| Unless you live in Germany, where you still get to have such
| expectations, even when using company hardware.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Even if the national law would permit it there, I would
| really want a front row seat when this would be presented to
| the worker's council. That would be some show :)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| What the flying f***.. Is this going to be a standard part of
| Microsoft 365?
|
| Edit: _Nope_ , luckily not. It's part of Microsoft Purview, which
| is an add-on to M365 by the looks of it:
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/microsoft-... .
| At least it's not going to bother everyone that uses M365. It
| probably costs a lot to add on too. Meaning our company will
| probably not use it. Phew.
|
| But whoever's employer does buy this are now constantly going to
| be scanned for potential malicious activity at work. Sounds like
| a scene from The Circle, or worse, The Every. Where the
| characters constantly have to express how happy they are and how
| aligned with the company because they're insta-fired if they're
| in the bottom 10%. This was meant to be a work of _fiction_. 1984
| was not a manual, Microsoft.
|
| When Microsoft started their data farming with office insights
| "purely anonymous and intended to help increase your personal
| performance!!" I always knew it was a way of introducing much
| worse. But I didn't imagine they'd go this far this quickly, I
| assumed they'd just use all the data for marketing and misguided
| employee performance metrics. I say "misguided" since Office
| insights used the same "healthy" metrics for online meeting
| hours, concentration hours etc regardless of employees' roles,
| which obviously differ greatly in the type of work and amount of
| collaboration. I'm not sure if it still does this by the way, as
| I turned it off after the first weeks. Which by the way doesn't
| stop it collecting data, it just stops emailing me about it.
|
| It's a totally different thing to accuse employees of wrongdoing
| based on AI algorithms though.
|
| Imagine saying something like "oh god what a day, I hate this
| place" in a _private_ teams chat after a frustrating meeting. +1
| potential leaver point. Or "hey I hope they're going to give us
| some nice goodies at that event!". +1 suspicious gifts point. A
| few more points and way to go, you're on the HR shitlist. Sure,
| Microsoft recommend an "explicitly opted-in investigator" looks
| at it but who has time to spare these days. It'll just end up a
| metric on an excel sheet somewhere.
|
| I'm sure the data will be "anonymised" but this will probably
| mean that it will be averaged across a team. Since most of our
| teams are really small, it's really not that anonymous. And in
| fact, it makes it even harder to disprove, a low 'leaver' score
| might be caused by one colleague and put a dark shade over the
| entire team.
|
| I really don't like this at all. I understand that corporate
| comms tools are not meant to be private. But to me that means
| someone could look at it in the case of major transgressions. Not
| to _constantly_ look at it and weigh every word in search of
| things which aren 't even transgressions (as far as I recall,
| wanting to leave an organisation is still legal).
|
| PS: Also... "usernames are pseudonymized by default". What do you
| mean "by default"???, so it can be switched off to not
| pseudonymise?
|
| I really wonder how legal this is in the EU, especially stricter
| countries like Germany.
| bcrl wrote:
| gigel82 wrote:
| So this is just Email and Teams, right? This isn't corroborated
| with intrusive MITM-extracted browser history from work
| computers, right? Right !?
|
| Dear company IT spy overlords, my use of LeetCode is exclusively
| to learn new interviewing techniques to help me bring in only the
| best of the best to our amazing company! /s
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I have zero confidence that this system is smart enough to
| differentiate between all these things and the legitimate
| variants thereof that companies actually want people doing or
| discussing and likely outnumber the bad by orders of magnitude.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Dear throwaway0a5e,
|
| We have detected overly negative language in your
| correspondence that we have correlated with being a danger to
| yourself or others. Due to this we have decided to terminate
| your employment immediately. Please find attached references to
| local psychiatrists that may be able to help you with your
| reeducation. Have a nice day!
| olyjohn wrote:
| Don't forget to drink your verification can!
| car_analogy wrote:
| > Built with privacy by design, usernames are pseudonymized by
| default, role-based access controls are built in, investigators
| are explicitly opted in by an admin, and audit logs are in place
| to ensure user-level privacy.
|
| Well nothing to worry about then.
| u2077 wrote:
| Forgot a part:
|
| > And employees are opted in without any notice from their
| employer
|
| [edit] Obviously professional communication channels are
| monitored, but it would still be nice to be informed when
| policies change. (Anyhow, personal and professional
| communications should _always_ be kept separate to avoid this
| issue)
| more_corn wrote:
| There is no such thing as automatic opt-in.
|
| That's weasel talk. Opt in means you get to choose if you
| want it.
|
| They're turning it on by default and not telling people.
|
| This is the most bullshit thing Microsoft has done in
| decades.
| alar44 wrote:
| Well no shit, it's company email, there's no expectation of
| privacy or control here.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| As far as I understand this is not just email, but teams
| conversations as well (though I'm not sure if it applies to
| both voice & text or just text, but be aware that Teams
| already has voice to text built right in!)
|
| And also be aware that the 'watercooler' conversation has
| been replaced with digital forms over the last 2 years,
| meaning a look over your shoulder to see who's within
| earshot is no longer sufficient. And it's not always
| obvious that someone (or something, in this case) may be
| watching.
|
| In the last 2 years most of my comms with my colleagues
| went from 90% face to face to 80% digital. Big difference.
| And it's not healthy either to not talk about frustrations
| at work.
| more_corn wrote:
| There is a reasonable expectation not to be targeted by
| adversarial AI though. This feature makes a terrible
| future. I will never recommend a client use MS email again.
| easton wrote:
| Here's the actual changelog: https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/microsoft-365/roadmap?rtc=1&...
| netsharc wrote:
| It's the item with the words "leavers classifier" in the title.
|
| Hah, creepy technology. I suppose they could do a lot more,
| like using metrics to measure productivity, and if it's below
| what the employee usually has, then, maybe they've lost
| motivation.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| They pretty much do this already. If you opt in to office
| insights you get mails like "hey you @mentioned your
| colleagues 22% less this week, maybe you should engage more
| with your team!".
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