Copyright Far East Trade Press Ltd. Dec 2000| [Headnote] |
| Asia's cultural tradition could boost sales of surveillance software |
It's good news for Asian businesses and bad news for Asian workers. Corporate snooping is on its way. Having spread its tentacles throughout the United States, surveillance software that monitors employees' use of the Internet is creeping into the Asian region. The software, often cheap by corporate standards, costing anywhere from US$40 to US$100, and in the form of an easily insertable compact disc, can not only record the websites an employee visits, but also every single keystroke he/she makes. Some programs can even flash a real-time image of the employee's screen onto the boss's computer. For those who think they can switch screens when the boss walks by - they may already have been caught.
Essentially this means that anytime anyone presses any key on the keyboard it will be recorded - whether it is Microsoft Word files, email or on a website. Letters, diaries, resumes, job applications, along with any corrections and deletions, will be saved along with records of their Internet use for the boss to examine at his leisure. Stories of workers caught drafting new resumes, writing the truth about their managers in their Microsoft diaries, sending out company information to competitors already abound. All this in addition to being disciplined for scanning pornographic sites, shopping, chatting, trading, gambling and downloading online music.
Major companies, as well as small businesses in Asia, are already snapping up the software, which is undetectable and undeletable. American manufacturer Websense, whose programs block out undesirable sites such as those featuring pornography, has already captured corporations such as Samsung, 50 of the Nikkei 225 companies, including NEC, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, and obtained the number one share in the market, according to Websense vice president Cleve Adams. Although the product was introduced only recently, Asian sales already account for 10% of its total sales. In the US, the company has almost 9,000 clients, with 225 of the Fortune 500 using its system.
Despite rumblings from international civil liberties unions over a growing lack of privacy on the job, manufacturers continue to justify their software. "Time spent on the job is company time and managers are within their rights to see what people do in that time," says Roy Young of Adavi Inc, creator of the Silent Watch surveillance system.
Billions of dollars, say the manufacturers, are lost because of employees surfing the Internet or doing personal work on the job. Websense estimates almost US$54 billion a year is lost because of wasted time. According to US-based International Data Corporation, about 30-40% of a worker's productivity is lost because of personal cyber-cruising.
For this and other reasons, they expect the programs to be as popular in Asia as they have been in other markets. Some even point to cultural factors that might make selling here easier than in the US. "We've seen such success in the United States despite the outcry over personal freedom," says a manufacturer. "In Asia, certain cultural traditions may make it even more acceptable. There is more sense of loyalty to the company and employers are expected to keep tabs on workers. I think it will meet a lot less resistance in Asia."
Adavi, maker of the Silent Watch program that monitors keystrokes, introduced the software only three months ago and already has seen 2,000 downloads from its website (www.adavi.com). "The Asian market is just getting ramped up," says Young. "Marketing will take some time, but our resellers tell us they have never seen anything like Silent Watch and there is a huge market to be had. Asia is going to be strong for us in the next six months." Adavi has already sold to businesses in Malaysia, Singapore, India and Hong Kong and is making contacts with companies such as Levi-Strauss and Compaq in Asia, among others. Young will not reveal his other clients, however. "We are a security company and seldom provide the user's name without their expressed permission," he says.
The company has grown 250% since last year alone, selling to businesses, government offices, hospitals and colleges, says Young. A new version, which will allow remote control of the client machine, is to be released soon. "This will provide real-time fixes for the MIS directors and they can repair file problems without having to leave the desk," adds Young. "It will also allow them to take control of a user computer if abuse was to take place." The new version plus previous systems are available either through the company's various agents or through its website (www adavi.com).
| [Photograph] |
| Asian workers may soon have to think twice before they download that MP3 file or send an email to a friend. The boss could well be watching |
Winwhatwhere, maker of the Investigator surveillance system, which is similar to Silent Watch, has also made inroads into Asia, inking agreements in South Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines and Thailand. It can also be downloaded from the company website (winwhatwhere.com), with one program costing US$99, and the price decreasing the more you buy. The system is undetectable and does not appear as an icon on the screen. Even a search for it will not reveal anything. Moreover, it can duplicate itself if a problem were to arise with the originally installed program, according to its manufacturer, Richard Eaton.
Surveillance manufacturers' success notwithstanding, where does this leave the workers? Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington DC-based Electronic Privacy Information Center believes the programs are extremely invasive and violate employee privacy. "Of course workers have privacy rights," he says. "The argument that an employee's time on the job is not his own and employers can do what they want is nonsense. There are definite privacy rights. They cannot be strip-searched. No one can go through their briefcase or purse. There are still many things companies cannot do to workers."
Growing concerns over computer surveillance have also sparked debates at several international privacy rights organisations such as Privacy International, which now dishes out Big Brother awards to global companies that most violate privacy rights. Past recipients have included companies such as DoubleClick and Microsoft. In one annual conference, the president of the organisation, Simon Davies, even dressed up as Dr Evil to hand out the awards.
Although there have not yet been any major surveys on Asian surveillance, employee habits are expected to follow those in the US, the first market to have received these systems. Internet surveillance in the US has shown porn to be the most accessed feature, according to the Center for Internet Addiction in Connecticut. Online trading follows close behind. Almost 70% of the porn traffic takes place during work hours, according to SexTracker, which monitors the use of these sites, with one in five white-collar males accessing the material. About 40% of American companies are now using surveillance software, up from 17% in late 1998, and 80% will be monitoring employees by July 2001, according to the US-based International Data Corporation (IDC). Nearly three-quarters of major US companies are recording and reviewing their employees' communications, including telephone calls, email, and Internet connections - a figure that has doubled since 1997, according to the American Management Association.
Ali Saify, 37, who runs a small architecture firm in Karachi, Pakistan, says he was originally against installing any such programs. " I grew up with all these notions of personal freedom and spent a great deal of time in liberal arts colleges in the US," he says. "So, I really didn't feel comfortable with it initially," he says. But in the past year or two as Pakistan became more Internet savvy, Saify noticed his workers seemed to be producing less and less. "They always looked like they were working," he says. "But whenever I asked them about my projects, they were always delayed." Saify says the problem was more prevalent among the junior staff and not so much the career architects. "When people are in it for the long-term, I think they are less prone to abuse the system," he says. Finally, as Saify's small business began to lose money and his projects fell behind, a friend persuaded him to try one of the programs. "From then on I started getting records on my employees. A little sleazy, but when you are running a small business, even the small change seems huge." Eventually Saify found out some of his employees were spending hours downloading music, using chat rooms, checking out movie reviews.
His junior associate Nadia, 27, came close to being fired for spending too much time on the Internet. "I didn't think I was doing anything wrong," she says. "I mean I spend a lot of time in between projects on the phone and after all I am human and need to have a life in between."
According to Saify, her projects were often delayed. "Most of the time she was in the chat rooms," he says. "She spent most of her time chatting up guys on the Internet - or someone we think were guys.
In some parts of Asia, it's just so much easier for men and women to talk online and since not many people have computers at home, abuse at work becomes more prevalent. Pornography, he says is not so much an issue, at least in Pakistan. "It's still a very taboo subject in this country and most men are still a little leery of checking it out in the office," he says.
Most workers are also uneasy at the prospect of "big brother" employer. These systems are just hitting the Asian markets and it remains to be seen how the region's workers will react to workplaces that start feeling more and more like school principals' offices and less like adult businesses.
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