"The post-pandemic rise in remote work led to an explosion of employee-monitoring technology, as bosses sought to keep tabs on workers' activity, locations, and messages. Now, in the latest glimpse into our dystopian future, computer engineers at Rice University have previewed a new nightmare scenario for workers: constant biometric surveillance via hidden devices built into our work computers. In a new study published in Computer Communications,"
"To prove it, the team built a heart-rate monitor utilizing millimeter-wave technology and demonstrated that it could be used to detect when someone was present in the room, potentially providing a record of employee breaks and work activity. The team said the spy device could even be used to get a rough idea of whether someone was stressed, fatigued, asleep, and so on."
The post-pandemic shift to remote work produced rapid growth in employee-monitoring technologies that track activity, location, and communications. Engineers at Rice University demonstrated that off-the-shelf millimeter-wave radar and related biometric sensors can be adapted to monitor heart and breathing rates, detect presence, eavesdrop on phone conversations, and infer emotional or physiological states such as stress, fatigue, or sleep. The team built a radar-based heart-rate monitor that records room presence and could produce records of breaks and work activity. They also developed MetaHeart, a countermeasure that camouflages a user's heartbeat and can defeat the radar monitoring. The demonstration underscores substantial privacy trade-offs and risks of covert workplace biometric surveillance.
Read at Nautilus
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