George Orwell’s Big Brother is a fictional character in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling Party wields total power "for its own sake" over the inhabitants. They are not interested in the good of others - they are only interested in power.
So, what has this got to do with you?
Well a company in Boston, Massachusetts, Humanyze, has developed a badge containing a pair of microphones that analyse voice in real time and tracks the wearer’s location everywhere apart from visits to the bathroom.
Ben Waber, CEO of Humanyze, has predicted: every single ID badge will have the sensors within the next few years.
He has tried to reassure the concerns of those who see this as a worrying move towards the recording of all conversations. He has said that the conversations are not being recorded, only how they speak.
He also added that the worker can choose to participate or not.
"If you don't give people choice, if you don't aggregate instead of showing individual data, any benefit would be dwarfed by the negative reaction people will have of you coming in with this very sophisticated sensor."
He has said that one client is using the badges to improve productivity by using the data to find which teams need to communicate and be closer together: “It's using sensors to get information about what's going on in the real world.
Comment
Improving efficiency must be the goal of any organisation. However, I recently went to see a stage adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-four and found it to be a very disturbing play. When does choice become an obligation?
