Workplace Monitoring Apps Share Employee Data with Big Tech Without Disclosure

A recent report has shed light on the worrying trend of workplace-monitoring apps sharing employee data with Big Tech companies without clear disclosure. Researchers from Columbia Law School's Center for Law and the Economy and Northeastern University's Khoury College examined nine such platforms and found that they frequently transmit employee data to third parties.

The investigation discovered that all nine platforms shared workers' identifying data with at least one third party, resulting in 121 unique instances of data sharing involving companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. In some cases, the platforms transmitted workers' online activity data to as many as 145 unique third-party domains.

Three of the nine platforms included features that could track a worker's precise location while the app ran in the background. Some monitoring platforms shared workers' email addresses with up to six third parties, including Microsoft, Facebook, and ZoomInfo. This raises concerns about the potential for building detailed profiles of workers without their knowledge.

The researchers also found that only two of the nine platform providers named specific third parties in their privacy policies, and even those disclosures covered just a fraction of what was observed. The sharing was not limited to non-managerial workers, with 76 instances involving managerial accounts.