There are two types of people on a campus: people love the freewheeling academic environment and really get the mission, and people who would work in corporate except they aren’t competent enough.
And, I want to be clear—I’ve met a ton of the former. Really, I’m not down on universities at all. They are full of wonderful people fighting against the corporatization and just, like, trying to remain human.
But the latter would absolutely implement corporate style surveillance dystopia at the drop of a hat. Except, again, they’d do it in the dumbest way possible, so it would somehow be even slower and shittier than the bloatware you get on your corporate laptop.
worse, a bright eyed smart guy with a young family gets an offer of a lifetime to lead IT at a world-class University based on long stable performance at a low-profile place. The offers start getting exchanged, housing and schools are looked at with cautious optimism and oh, that new paycheck. But as the meetings get serious and papers get signed, there is a certain requirement.. we are upgrading our networks.. in particular the routers.. and our email system is from the stone age. "We" are looking at these certain routers, the new IT director is informed.. this deal has been in the works for a long time. You will have the first duty to implement this giant change. Yes, the routers do "deep packet" inspection but we have government contracts here, this is National Security... Some departments will complain, you will have to meet with them..
<specific names and dates excluded to protect the guilty>
> I was unpleasantly surprised to see Accenture on the list of bad employers who spy on their employees with AI.
for someone with the username 'cynicalsecurity' this is surprising to hear :) i don't think there are any global for-profit consulting firms who are guided by any kind of strong moral/ethical compass.
In my experience, small businesses are actually the ones that love to spy. There's really no tech oversight so when the owner asks for access, they get it. Whereas if a middle manager in an enterprise company asks to see their reports mailboxes, security will tell them to get fucked.
This. Coming from MSP world, the number of SMBs who harbor such an intense hatred of their own workers to the point of demanding total surveillance is basically all of them; customers refusing surveillance packages are the exception, not the norm.
Irony is that surveillance cuts both ways, and big companies know it. Any data you collect can and will be subpoenaed at some point, and that’ll multiply your damages paid out in the process.
There are already complaints about surveillance of academics and students during lectures in my country by a certain non-American government. Also when it comes to healthcare, there are many companies competing to get in that door as we speak.
Maybe, but the current US administration is doing its best to destroy #1, #2, and #4. So that leaves healthcare, which is probably only "protected" because it has already developed different flavors of dystopia.
I was unpleasantly surprised to see Accenture on the list of bad employers who spy on their employees with AI.