Workers In China Find Web-Spying AI Has Been Used To Predict When They’ll Quit
A rather controversial system has been revealed on Chinese social media, much to the upset of many users. This is a monitoring technology that tracks employees’ online activities, predicting how likely they are to resign from their posts or if they are considering leaving the company.
Created by tech firm Sangfor Technologies, the system is purportedly able to track if users have been visiting job search sites, how much time was spent browsing the site, and even provide downloads of PDFs of résumés sent out in applications.
This was first brought to light by a post on professional networking app Maimai, where an anonymous user wrote that he had been fired because his boss realized he was intending to leave. Apparently, he had already submitted applications to other jobs, which were seen by the boss.
“My boss told me off,” he wrote, as cited by Insider. “‘Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re up to during office hours. I know exactly when you plan to leave!’”
Another user on Chinese social networking site Weibo posted screenshots of what they claimed was the Sangfor system in action, complete with the hashtag “don’t use the company network to submit your résumé.”
While many are shocked by this system, others are surprised that, well, they’re surprised. “But internal computer systems will always be monitored,” another Weibo user, quoted by Insider, writes. “I thought everyone knew that.”
Sangfor Technologies had applied for a patent for this system in 2018, as reported by the South China Morning Post. This was registered at data analytics firm Qichacha, and allegedly would analyze the employee’s intentions by reading the information they put out on social media, email, and recruitment websites.
The system was also capable of ranking the employees of a company by level of “perceived risk,” essentially creating a list of people to keep an eye on.
[via Insider and the South China Morning Post, image ID 121994900 © Golubovy | Dreamstime.com]
