Are You Being Watched at Work? The Psychology of Bossware and Workplace Surveillance

Overview

In this Speaking of Psychology episode, host Kim Mills speaks with Dr. Tara Behrend about bossware and electronic monitoring in the workplace. The conversation covers the variety of technologies in use, why organizations collect data, how being watched changes what people do, and the legal and ethical landscape that governs these practices. The discussion emphasizes that monitoring can shift attention toward metrics that may not reflect meaningful job performance, with safety and autonomy affected in varying ways by job type.

• Technologies range from keystroke trackers and webcams to location tracking and fatigue detection across occupations
• Surveillance can drive efficiency but may also lead to unsafe shortcuts and unhealthy competition
• Power dynamics shape the impact, with less powerful workers experiencing more autonomy loss
• US federal guidance is limited, while the EU, Canada, and Australia require more disclosure and job-related monitoring

Introduction and Context

The episode from Speaking of Psychology features host Kim Mills interviewing Dr. Tara Behrend, a leading IO psychologist who investigates the ethical, social, and psychological implications of workplace technologies, including electronic surveillance or bossware. The discussion begins by framing the current reality: a rising use of digital devices to monitor employees across a spectrum of occupations, from remote workers to on-site staff in logistics and manufacturing. The central questions explored are how common these devices are, what employers claim they hope to achieve with them, how AI tools are changing the monitoring landscape, and what laws and regulations govern surveillance in the United States. The host notes that the program is part of a broader effort by the American Psychological Association to translate psychological science into everyday life, with the guest bringing a substantial research portfolio on technology in the workplace and governance of data generated in organizational settings.

Behrend is introduced as the John Richard Butler II Endowed professor at Michigan State University, whose research emphasizes the ethical and psychological implications of workplace technologies, including data collection and surveillance. The conversation promises to explore common surveillance technologies, their use across industries, the impact on worker behavior, and the regulatory environment that shapes how monitoring can be conducted in a way that protects workers while supporting organizational goals.

Scope and Prevalence of Bossware

Behrend notes that the term bossware encompasses a wide range of monitoring technologies. The examples cited in the introduction include keystroke tracking, webcams recording remote workers, fatigue-detection systems for truck drivers, and devices that track movement and location within warehouses. The argument is that increased automation and AI adoption feed a feedback loop: automation requires detailed knowledge of tasks, which in turn incentivizes collecting more data about workers. The trend means that surveillance is increasingly embedded in everyday work, not just in high-risk or highly regulated sectors.

What Employers Say and What They Do with Data

The discussion highlights a tension: employers claim data-driven monitoring can improve productivity and safety, yet Dr. Behrend points out that many organizations do not enter surveillance programs with a clear, research-backed question in mind. Instead, there is often a belief that having more data will yield better insights later. This mindset can drive heavy data collection with unclear immediate purpose and raises concerns about whether the data are used in ways that reflect legitimate job performance or simply to control or micromanage workers. The risk is that metrics chosen as proxies for performance can distort behavior because they incentivize workers to optimize the tracked metric rather than outcomes that truly reflect quality, safety, or efficiency.

Behavioral Effects of Monitoring

The core psychological mechanism discussed is that surveillance signals what is important. When monitoring emphasizes certain actions—such as speed for drivers—without equal attention to safety behaviors or careful decision-making, workers may engage in riskier practices to meet the metric. Behrend emphasizes that surveillance is a distraction that consumes cognitive resources. In high-stakes roles like airport screeners or police officers with body cameras, continuous monitoring can impede decompression and stress relief, leading to sustained heightened arousal. The researchers are examining police officers wearing body cameras to understand how constant monitoring affects attention, stress, and decision-making during and between calls, including in car rides between incidents. The overarching takeaway is that monitoring can alter what people attend to and how they allocate cognitive effort, with potential safety implications depending on job requirements.

Power, Autonomy, and Job Type

A central theme is power: workers with the least power are more negatively affected by surveillance because it can be used to exert control, reduce autonomy, and punish perceived missteps. By contrast, in roles with higher professional autonomy—such as surgeons—monitoring can be framed as safety-oriented or feedback-oriented, where data are used to improve practice rather than to micromanage, and where clinical outcomes may justify more invasive data collection. The discussion also raises questions about data ownership and the legal landscape when monitoring data contains sensitive information, such as medical errors, patient safety data, or personal content that crosses work and private life boundaries.

Regulatory Landscape and Transparency

The episode emphasizes a regulatory gap in the United States. Behrend explains that there is little federal guidance on who owns the data collected by workplace surveillance, how long it is kept, or how employees should be notified about what is tracked. Some states have transparency requirements, but there is no comprehensive federal standard. In contrast, the European Union, Canada, and Australia have more robust rules requiring disclosure of monitoring practices and limiting surveillance to work-related behaviors. The EU approach is often cited as a benchmark for balancing organizational needs with worker privacy. The GAO has published reports with best practices that could inform federal policy across agencies concerned with worker safety, highlighting a pathway toward stronger protections without stifling legitimate organizational needs.

AI, Privacy, and the Future of Monitoring

The guest argues that while AI can render surveillance more sophisticated, it does not necessarily equate to better measurement of job performance. New data streams may capture incidental information such as facial expressions or micro-behaviors, which can be misused for discrimination or punitive purposes. The invisibility of modern surveillance is a concern; workers may not know what is captured, who has access, or how it is used, potentially eroding trust and raising privacy concerns. There is a cautionary note that the push toward complete automation and machine-like compliance could narrow the range of human variation that organizations rely on to handle complex, non-routine tasks.

Practical Guidance for Workers

Behrend offers advice for employees facing surveillance but also stresses the importance of systemic protections. On the individual level, workers can maintain boundaries and consider how to use surveillance feedback constructively to improve safety and performance. The host asks whether there are ways to block surveillance; Behrend discusses common tactics such as leaving personal conversations off corporate devices and turning off cameras during meetings as a team-level discussion rather than a personal workaround. The broader point is that resistance through subterfuge is not a sustainable or productive response; instead, workers should advocate for stronger protections and clearer data governance at the policy level while leveraging legitimate feedback mechanisms to improve performance.

Policy Recommendations and Future Research

The episode points to a need for federal protections to address power imbalances in the workplace and to reduce the risk of misuse of surveillance data. Behrend highlights a Government Accountability Office report and recommends that agencies like OSHA, NIOSH, and the CDC incorporate monitoring considerations into their safety frameworks. On the research front, Behrend is pursuing two central questions: how surveillance affects workers with secure, stable employment versus those in precarious work arrangements, and how distraction from constant self-monitoring contributes to burnout. The goal is to identify conditions under which surveillance can be designed to enhance safety and learning without eroding worker autonomy or well-being. The conversation ends with an acknowledgment that the future of work will likely involve more sophisticated monitoring, but with careful policy and design choices, it can be guided toward supporting workers rather than aligning them with machine-like predictability.

Conclusion and Takeaways

The interview presents a nuanced view of workplace surveillance as a double-edged sword. It has potential benefits for safety and efficiency but also serious risks for autonomy, privacy, and well-being, especially for workers with less power. The host and guest advocate for thoughtful governance, stronger federal protections, and collaboration across agencies to ensure that monitoring serves workers and organizations alike. The takeaway is a call for balancing innovation with human-centered considerations in the design and deployment of bossware and AI-enabled surveillance in the modern workplace.