> How much do the lawyers deserve to know?

Nothing IMO. They can look at the company's actions. There's no need to invade the privacy of individual employees.

If they were trying to confiscate my personal mobile that I use for work I will never go along with that.

Luckily I live in Europe where the atmosphere is far less litigious.

> Luckily I live in Europe where the atmosphere is far less litigious.

Not if your name is Google Inc.

> Nothing IMO. They can look at the company's actions. There's no need to invade the privacy of individual employees.

This refers to employees communicating in a work setting not personal communications. Not saying there should be cameras in the bathroom but if you’re talking to coworkers on an @google email about work… it feels hard to justify saying it’s private.

People are still human beings even while at work. There is a limit to how much an employer owns a person, even when they are an employee, even when they are in the building, even when they are on the clock.

Employers try to push that as far as they can get away with, so there are current examples of employees being treated worse than cattle that should be illegal and probably is, but that is just employers overreaching and getting away with it because of the usual power discrepency.

And my point with all that is the rest of us have no right to anything the employer has no right to.

> If they were trying to confiscate my personal mobile that I use for work

That is a good reason never to use your personal mobile for work! If you really need a phone to do your job, your employer should be paying for it anyway.

Exactly.

People look at me like I have two heads when I tell them that my work devices are for work things and personal devices are for personal things.

There are very rare exceptions to this rule.

> They can look at the company's actions

This would work if we could punish wrongdoing regardless of intent, a standard probably reasonable against companies (they should know better after all). But this is not how it usually goes: Usually incompetence has to be ruled out and criminal intent has to be proven.

The only thing that can be brought into court is what you did at work. What privacy interest is there in that?

It's not just about the court, I'm not going to let some sleazy lawyers inspect my phone. If they make me have it over I'll wipe it first.

Better to just have a website for anonymous tip offs where you can download a private key and collect a fat reward if it ends up being used for a prosecution.

Or we could do the opposite and have corporate whistleblowers like the boeing ones mysteriously die off while everyone just makes jokes about it.

> every communication within a company could be recorded forever.

Within 15 years we will probably wear a necklace or other device that will record [at least the audio] of our entire lives. This will have a number of positive benefits (memory augmentation, etc.) but also as train data for AI.

No.

Some people will. Others will refuse, and very likely refuse to interact with people with such devices. The "gargoyles" of Snow Crash (people living their lives with full recording devices on them at all times to upload to the metaverse) were not well liked.

And lest we forget more recent history, the term "Glassholes" came into existence to refer similarly to people with "I don't know if their camera/mic on their face is recording me or not!" devices on their heads.

A quote I often remember -- don't know the source:

> We live in a unique moment in time. Cameras are everywhere, and we can see them. Previously, they were not there. In the future, we will not be able to see them.

> And lest we forget more recent history, the term "Glassholes" came into existence to refer similarly to people with "I don't know if their camera/mic on their face is recording me or not!" devices on their heads.

That was during the same years when SOPA/PIPA inspired half the companies on the internet to go black in protest, the same companies which now fold over in response to authoritarian demands from governments. We now live in a very different world than that one.

> And lest we forget more recent history, the term "Glassholes" came into existence

Norms do shift. I remember the fuss over GMail "reading" your mail.

Today we already have dashcams, bodycams, security cameras, and doorbell cameras recording a lot of spaces previously presumed to be unmonitored. Another 10 years and continuous recording will be commonplace.

That is already available today :)

Compass https://shop.compasswearable.com/products/compass

Did you read The Circle? I definitely won't wear any such devices.

Any more specific than just "The Circle"? The one by M.J. Trow does not really sound so fitting. Are you talking about Dave Eggers? Is this a read recommendation? :-)

Yes, I'd imagine they're talking about the Eggers book in this case -- it's a decent enough read imo.

you don't need to wonder, go and read up on the madness that is Bridgewater Associates

wtf https://www.businessinsider.com/bridgewater-associates-manag...

As much as I think Dalio's "principles" are a "good thing" for personal practices they don't scale to groups--let alone a corporation.

All of these "radical transparency" and "radical honesty" practices are just justifications for being lackadaisical about the nuances of human relations.