Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Robotics Canada Government Privacy

Public Servants Uneasy As Government 'Spy' Robot Prowls Federal Offices (www.cbc.ca) 72

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: A device federal public servants call "the little robot" began appearing in Gatineau office buildings in March. It travels through the workplace to collect data using about 20 sensors and a 360-degree camera, according to Yahya Saad, co-founder of GlobalDWS, which created the robot. "Using AI on the robot, the camera takes the picture, analyzes and counts the number of people and then discards the image," he said. Part of a platform known as VirBrix, the robot also gathers information on air quality, light levels, noise, humidity, temperature and even measures CO2, methane and radon gas. The aim is to create a better work environment for humans -- one that isn't too hot, humid or dim. Saad said that means more comfortable and productive employees. The technology can also help reduce heating, cooling and hydro costs, he said. "All these measures are done to save on energy and reduce the carbon footprint," Saad explained. After the pilot program in March, VirBrix is set to return in July and October, and the government hasn't ruled out extending its use. It's paying $39,663 to lease the robot for two years.

Bruce Roy, national president of the Government Services Union, called the robot's presence in federal workplaces "intrusive" and "insulting." "People feel observed all the time," he said in French. "It's a spy. The robot is a spy for management." Roy, whose union represents more than 12,000 federal workers across several departments, said the robot is unnecessary because the employer already has ways of monitoring employee attendance and performance. "We believe that one of the robot's tasks is to monitor who is there and who is not," he said. "Folks say, why is there a robot here? Doesn't my employer trust that I'm here and doing my work properly?" [...] Jean-Yves Duclos, the minister of public services and procurement, said the government is instead using the technology as it looks to cut its office space footprint in half over the coming years. "These robots, as we call them, these sensors observe the utilization of office space and will be able to give us information over the next few years to better provide the kind of workplace employees need to do their job," Duclos said in French. "These are totally anonymous methods that allow us to evaluate which spaces are the most used and which spaces are not used, so we can better arrange them."
"In those cases we keep the images, but the whole body, not just the face, the whole body of the person is blurred," said Saad. "These are exceptional cases where we need to keep images and then the images would be handed over to the client."

The data is then stored on a server on Canadian soil, according to GlobalDWS.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Public Servants Uneasy As Government 'Spy' Robot Prowls Federal Offices

Comments Filter:
  • by postbigbang ( 761081 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @08:09AM (#64566567)

    Instill fear and paranoia in your employees, the big seed of robotic distrust. Worse, someone will hack the feed and spill the feed to enemies of the people.

    And to seal the distrust, it doesn't serve coffee.

    • It should at least have some kind of holder for a 12-ounce--sorry, 355 mL--beverage can. Back in the 1980's, that was nearly a legal requirement for otherwise useless robots.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      My first thought was now I know what those little wheeled droids scurrying around on the Death Star were for.

    • And to seal the distrust, it doesn't serve coffee.

      "Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Anyone like any toast?"

      But seriously: This is a bunch of whiny bitches complaining about their feelies not being respected. "People feel [...] We believe [...] " Get the fuck over yourselves. Your paranoia has no value in a business situation. They gave you an explanation of the purpose of the device. Anything after that is just an excuse to not do the job you are being paid for. Do your job, and let others do theirs.

      • You can stop bending over and pull up your pants, now.

      • And to seal the distrust, it doesn't serve coffee.

        "Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Anyone like any toast?"

        But seriously: This is a bunch of whiny bitches complaining about their feelies not being respected. "People feel [...] We believe [...] " Get the fuck over yourselves. Your paranoia has no value in a business situation. They gave you an explanation of the purpose of the device. Anything after that is just an excuse to not do the job you are being paid for. Do your job, and let others do theirs.

        Some people work while on camera all the time. Bank employees, 7-11 clerks, airport personnel, etc. Not everyone has to do that yet though, fortunately it is the exception rather than the rule. Maybe you would like it to be the rule, maybe you like being always watched too. You do you, whatever.

        But don't think this is not the same as just putting up a CCTV system in places of employment that don't currently have them. It is not really fooling anyone. Radon LOL.

        On the bright side, they have a uni

        • If this were an actual surveillance system then they would have a valid complaint... but it is not. So what the fuck are these people whining about? That they *feel* some way about it because it moves? It makes no sense.

          I mean, it IS the government... so maybe they are lying about it not being a surveillance system... but that is an unproven conspiracy theory.

          • If this were an actual surveillance system then they would have a valid complaint...

            Sure looks like a mobile surveillance system yes.

            I mean, it IS the government... so maybe they are lying

            Better than 50/50 odds there already.

    • They're government employees. If it instills fear and distrust, perhaps they'll quit their government jobs and return to the private sector...ha ha ha.. Why don't they take the sensor package and put one in every office, breakroom, and hallway in every government building.

  • Canada (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @08:10AM (#64566569) Homepage

    The summary would have been more informative if the country in question was mentioned.

    The closest it comes is at the end, saying that the data is stored on Canadian soil (odd, because earlier in the article it says the data is not stored.)

    • YEah...I had to keep looking and wondering about this myself.

      I could not imagine this would fly for US Federal offices....I mean, any place that has PI, or health data would mean this thing would be verboten....not to mention taking pics inside US federal buildings of people and structure, especially by what appeared to be a foreign robot...didn't sound right to be used in the US.

      The article or at least the slashdot synopsis should have been clear about that at the beginning.

      • The name of the office building implies Canada. I suspect that the source of the original article made the location clear.
        • It's Canada. Not only is it being reported by the CBC, Bruce Roy and the Government Services Union are Canadian.

          • I see it is Canada now.

            But a quick browse of the synopsis did NOT make that clear.

            Hell, I glanced paced the CBC thing and read it as CNBC or the like...

            Slashdot *is* still a US centric site....so, I read with the assumption that an article is US related unless otherwise more plainly marked.

            Putting the actual word "Canada" in front of Federal worker would have made this crystal clear.

            I'm more than sure that I wasn't the first one confused on initial reading of this....

    • it is a fairly simple deduction, I mean, CBC = Canadian Brodcasting Corporation, Gatineau office buildings = Buildings in/near Ottawa. I mean, it does require one to have some fairly basic information already loaded into one's wetware, and failing that, to google a few things... The summary, created by the poster, should have siad these things, but they probably thought that was obvious.
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Seriously? The names of office buildings in Ottawa is something you consider "fairly basic information already loaded into one's wetware"?
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Gatineau office buildings = buildings in Gatineau, Quebec.

    • The mention of Gatineau was the first clue that this story was from Canada. My one gripe with the article is its insistence on mentioning that the interviewees spoke in French. Before any of you get your panties in a knot, I was born in Québec and I'm francophone and have worked in the government buildings in what use to be called Hull and has since be renamed to Gatineau.
      • Everywhere in the world, French is a well-regarded, high-class, highly-cultural language. Except in Canada, where it is the despised language of an inferior, conquered people that has steadfastly refused to become english in 250 years despite extreme hardship thrown at them just for being french.

        It’s like if limeys have decided to take it on us as a petty revenge for the french whipping their arses on many battlefields for the last thousand years

        • This is a good thing, because otherwise England would be ruled from Paris these days.

          The story is told that Churchill arranged from his coffin to be taken by train from Waterloo station in London to Blenheim rather than the obvious station, Paddington. This meant that President deGaulle had to go there...

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Everywhere in the world, French is a well-regarded, high-class, highly-cultural language. Except in Canada, where it is the despised language of an inferior, conquered people that has steadfastly refused to become english in 250 years despite extreme hardship thrown at them just for being french.

          Itâ(TM)s like if limeys have decided to take it on us as a petty revenge for the french whipping their arses on many battlefields for the last thousand years/blockquote

          To be honest, no one in Canada really mind

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        They mentioned the statement was in French to indicate that the quote was translated. Translating a statement and quoting it without mentioning it was a translation would be irresponsible.

    • The summary would have been more informative if the country in question was mentioned.

      The very first line says:

      An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News:

      And "CBC News" stands for "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News" and the last line says,

      The data is then stored on a server on Canadian soil, according to GlobalDWS.

      Maybe it's just me, but I guessed Canada.

  • Want to generate some trust? Open up the collected data and generated reports for browsing by all employees, or better yet, all Canadians - this is a government building after all. Open up the code for bonus points.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Right, because the public wouldn't respond to cherry picked inflammatory stuff taken out of context, would it?

      That's why governments in democracies all have something called deliberative privilege in their executive functions. The political levels of the government of course have to make an open argument for or against policies, but advice of the civil servants below them is supposed to inform them on the full range of options, even options (e.g. starting a war) that might be considered unthinkable.

      The non

      • Your comments seem thought-out and well-informed. But I think if you redacted enough information from the data you might be able to remove the "radical" from "radical transparency". Would it be enough? Tough to say. But I have worked in government off an on over the years, and I think the big-wigs get a little full of themselves sometimes and over-reach, which seems to be the case here.

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        In a representative democracy *radical* should come from the public. They should be explained studied and advocated for first in places like private organizations and academia.

        The job of public servants should be advance and implement the agenda and ideas of the people that voted for them; it should not be to try and 'move them' or change their opinions; that is bass-akwards.

        Public service should be about being as parochial as possible.

        • In the aftermath of Brexit, Trump and, in Europe the AfD and Le Pen's rise to power it seems... ill placed.

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          That's all fine when you have a system with a highly educated, informed and highly engaged public. In other words a system based on counter-factual assumptions. The public doesn't even know enough to realize how little it knows. You want voters to make the day to day decisions on things like air travel safety regulation or highway safety standards? How much of each day should a citizen have to devote to studying those issues?

          Democracy doesn't work like that, except in some kind of small scale tribal d

      • The advantage of having a permanent, neutral civil service is what you argue. The problem lies in the fact that the mandarin class come to believe that they know far better than the politicians what the country need - and you get the scenario illustrated by 'Yes, Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister'.

        OTOH the horrendous situation where much of the US executive branch doesn't exist in the event of a change of party in power is a serious problem...

        • Under the Harper government, they tried to amend the Ethics guidelines for federal employees to require them to back cabinet ministers' decisions, instead of serving the public by providing the best information to ministers to inform their decisions. Since the Harper government was notoriously antI-science and very much ideologically driven, that pretty much would have transformed the Canadian public service into a bunch of apologists for ideologues. They didn't want to make informed decisions after examini
          • Under the Harper government, they tried to amend the Ethics guidelines for federal employees to require them to back cabinet ministers' decisions, instead of serving the public by providing the best information to ministers to inform their decisions. Since the Harper government was notoriously antI-science and very much ideologically driven, that pretty much would have transformed the Canadian public service into a bunch of apologists for ideologues. They didn't want to make informed decisions after examining the facts. They wanted to make decisions based on ideology first, and have the public service bend the facts to justify the decisions after the fact.

            Public servants can give feedback but don't get to make decisions. If they want to do that they can run for office. The government faces the electorate regularly and is the accountable party. That is how it is supposed to work.

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          Seriously, as ridiculous as they are, we'd be *lucky* to have Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker running things.

  • by Salo2112 ( 628590 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @08:19AM (#64566603)
    The surveillance is being done for their safety - and if they are not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about. RIght?
  • How soon can we make this happen for the US Federal workforce?

    Public employees absolutely should be monitored 100% of the time. Don't like it, stay out of public service.

    We need real accountability, which requires two things, massively shrinking the size of government to avoid finger pointing and CYA-circles and solid, consistent, unavoidable records of all activities.

    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      But it should also start at the top before it filters down to the lowest ranking public servants. Those at the top have much more scope for doing anything nefarious.

    • ... unavoidable records of all activities.

      What do you by mean "records"? A White-house meeting is brief, has a strict agenda and skilled staff staying on-message. Ordinary staff go off-topic fast and shallow, insensitive things are said. I worry that recording every meeting, or most meetings, will turn "accountability" into witch-hunting and X [Twitter]-style smack-downs.

  • "so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. "

  • by kryliss ( 72493 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @08:38AM (#64566647)

    That which can be abused will be abused.

  • Let me trot out Garbz's incessant bleating argument (note: he's not completely wrong)

    Those government workers are already being monitored seven ways til sunday. They use all manner of software that already logs, for all intents and purposes, ALL their activities. BUT I would argue that it would reasonably be part of the Terms of Service of working for the Canadian Government. So....In this case... it's terms of employment. Accept it or pound sand.

    Where that argument breaks down is for dummies using Microsof
  • the robot also gathers information on air quality, light levels, noise, humidity, temperature and even measures CO2, methane and radon gas.

    Eat lots of beans. Wait till the robot is around. Walk towards the robot and crop dust it. Repeat.

    Pass the word.

  • Farcical tragedy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @09:04AM (#64566697)
    This story is only part of bigger chain of events. Canadian government sent all federal employees to work from home due to COVID. They are still mostly working from home in 2024. As the result, public transit, downtown businesses, and office real estate in Ottawa crashed and burned. They are now trying to force public servants back into the office, but compliance is low. Not in small part because due to office space downsides and moves there often not enough desks available for everyone. So people resorted to coffee-badging, This robot is part of enforcing office attendance.
    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Or use the robot to identify that offices are mostly empty and thus not needed anymore. Close those spaces down and then you save a lot of money and energy.

      The aim is to create a better work environment for humans -- one that isn't too hot, humid or dim. Saad said that means more comfortable and productive employees

      One size does not fit all. A comfortable working environment for some people is a massive hindrance to productivity for others. Having your own personal working environment works a lot better.

    • This robot is part of enforcing office attendance.

      This means they do not have effective management. Worse than that, it means that the managers themselves don't believe in the priorities of the organization. I have no idea which organization this is as I performed as expected and didn't read the article, but all the hallmarks of an organization that has lost its way are on display.

  • The robots are coming for them.
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      First they have to train the bots how to lie to top management. Managers may be useless from a technical perspective, but they do provide a bullshit lubrication layer to protect us workers from having to deal directly with top-level BS.

  • ...it would send me home on Taco Tuesday.

  • It doesn't store any identifying information, except that it rolls by your cube a couple times a day and counts the number of people in *your* cubicle. No, that's not monitoring anything.
  • Heating and cooling could never be balanced. Could not have dual monitors, because that would raise energy consumption and upset the landlord - never mind the increase in productivity. Vey bad ventilation - and high air recycling (not good in covid days) . Legionella - nah within acceptable limits - dont tell. So it there is a robot - what's it gonna do? Will it disable the lights off, or enable aircond (needed a key afterhours) . There is a whole new generation of cant open the windows buildings or cope
  • Of course they're uneasy. Might show they only work 10% of the time.

  • Though the bad news is: all that data is going somewhere.
  • This would be it.

    No, I don't think it's a good idea. But of all sets of workers, I think more "slacking off" goes on in government offices, than anywhere else. There's a reason it always takes forever to get your driver's license, or car title, or your USPS package shipped. There's a reason Zootopia depicted government workers as sloths.

    Businesses are motivated by financial pressure to increase productivity. Government workers are not. Rather, they are motivated by "the rules" to work slower, not faster.

  • Heating and CO2 issues, to name but two, have been observed and measured before with absolutely no resulting action because it costs money.

    In any case, the government has scaled back its building rentals while at the same time dictating compulsory work-from-office. So there is less space and a now chaotic attendance tempo.

    So what will the robot be measuring that is of any use whatsoever? Nothing. But it will result in even poorer employee-management relations.

    Have to wonder, what idiot thought this would

Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?

Working...