AT&T Teletrack - tracking employees by GPS in their phones

[cyrus buelton]

Does anyone have this or a similar service on their work phone so your manager can see where you are?

I have been tasked to investigate this for our sales force as I guess some don't believe they are spending time with customers.

I think it is pretty big brotherish.....but not my decision.

[derby]

i would think your company's legal department might have an issue with that.

fwiw, it seems that the detailed billing info (which you likely already have, showing course cel tower location of outgoing calls) would be enough to know if they're in the right part of the city or not.

[cyrus buelton]

i would think your company's legal department might have an issue with that.

Company owned and paid device.

dozens of companies utilize this.


I have several friends that are pharmaceutical sales reps and they all have it.

[derby]

Company owned and paid device.

dozens of companies utilize this.


I have several friends that are pharmaceutical sales reps and they all have it.

oh, i totally understand that. all our phones are company owned.

given my interactions with corporate legal regarding things as simple as what keywords we can block on incoming email and whatnot, i'm pretty sure they'd have issues gps-tracking employees without some sort of employee notification/consent due to privacy concerns.

even with consent, it raises all sorts of issues. for example, do you have a right to track an employee outside of "business" hours? is that... right?

[Mad Duc]

http://boingboing.net/2009/07/30/gps-jammer-plugs-int.html

[derby]

http://boingboing.net/2009/07/30/gps-jammer-plugs-int.html

i used to work for a company that did gps-tracking for trucking companies. it was a product that was very popular with the home office, and very unpopular with the truckers (duh ).

there were records for everything, downtime, speed, location... everything.

lots of equipment sabotage.

now, i think tracking your shipments from point a to point b is a little different than tracking your salesforce out on calls. i mean, there's 16 hours of the day where your sales guy is on their "own time."

[cyrus buelton]

Just checked with Legal

employee would have to sign a waiver that we have the ability to track them.

[superjohn]

now, i think tracking your shipments from point a to point b is a little different than tracking your salesforce out on calls. i mean, there's 16 hours of the day where your sales guy is on their "own time."

That's why I only have my work cell on me when I am working. I don't use anything I work on for personal use (including the PC I am typing this on as I work on another PC with a separate connection.)

[ducatiz]

Since you are talking about legal opinions, I would give you one.

You aren't tracking the employee.

You are tracking the company-owned phone.

Employees do not need to give consent to this.  It would be nice to notify them that the phones will be tracked for company related purposes. 

However, some states' laws may or may not be silent on this particular issue.  Only about 15 states have ~extensive~ electronic privacy laws.

Ohio does not have a law (that I could find in my 5 minute search) regarding employee privacy using company-owned property.  Some states have found this privacy extends when dealing with personal matters (I.e. personal phone call on company phone).

However, the substance of tracking someone is NON specific, i.e. you know they are in a building, but you don't know which room.  You don't know if it is the bathroom or the main offices.

I would argue that is general enough to protect personal privacy.  An employer has the right to know where an employee is while on company time.

[wbeck257]

We used to have camera's in our trucks that would record 30 seconds before and after an "accident".
The damn things would turn on when you hit a speed bump.

Now we have computers in our trucks that track where you are, how much time you've spent on a call, did you take a good route, and hell how much time your truck has been idleing.

[ducatiz]

We used to have camera's in our trucks that would record 30 seconds before and after an "accident".
The damn things would turn on when you hit a speed bump.

Now we have computers in our trucks that track where you are, how much time you've spent on a call, did you take a good route, and hell how much time your truck has been idleing.

how did they know an accident was about to happen in 30 seconds?  seems like a nice feature.

[causeofkaos]

how did they know an accident was about to happen in 30 seconds?  seems like a nice feature.

the unit is constantly recording but when you have an accident it saves the 30 seconds prior to incident.

after typing this out im not sure if you were joking or really asking?

[mitt]

how did they know an accident was about to happen in 30 seconds?  seems like a nice feature.

I assume they are like an oscilloscope, they are recording live all the time, then when a trigger event happens, they save the last 30sec recorded and then forward 30seconds (pre trigger and post trigger)

mitt

[cyrus buelton]

I would argue that is general enough to protect personal privacy.  An employer has the right to know where an employee is while on company time.

See, what they are bringing back is what about after business hours?

weekends, holidays, etc.

[derby]

See, what they are bringing back is what about after business hours?

weekends, holidays, etc.

hehehe... i'd just forward my work phone to my personal phone and then turn the work phone off.