# Track or no track



## Rolling NapTIME (Sep 9, 2020)

I'd like to know how most of you feel regarding tracking employees via personal phone and via personal vehicle. Im asking for a friend who has claimed that her phone and vehicle are being tracked at all times with out consent from her employer. Thanks and keep on rollin'.


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## Gracobucks (May 29, 2011)

We use Tsheets that tracks the guys while they are clocked in. Does not track them when they are off the clock. It's great for time and material jobs.


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## Joe67 (Aug 12, 2016)

"_her phone and vehicle are being tracked at all times with out consent from her employer._"

Not enough info there to really reply, but FWIW I'm the employee rather than employer so that's important to know. By the same respect, I grew up in a small business family, and am good friends with my current "employer." (The friendship was before the employment relationship, and it's worked out just fine for quite a few years now). So I actually do understand it from the employer end too. Thus I'm also not the kind that needs to be tracked. I don't think in terms of "putting in hours." I think in terms of busting out the jobs and getting them done rather than "milking" them.


However, my general orientation to increasing ICT tracking capabilities is that I have no interest in living in a world so dominated by them, or one where employer-employee distrust is so bad that electronic tracking seen as a good thing. 

For starters, it is already abused by large corporate entities such as UPS and FedEx whose computer systems know down to the second how long someone was anywhere and the info is just used to run people ragged to the core. Second, if you truly know your trade, then you don't need digital tracking to know how hard or long someone has worked. Just look at what's done by the end of the day (while being aware of unexpected contingencies) and you'll know.

The dream of constant surveillance of workers is not new. It's actually quite old and, common understanding of "superior technology" aside, was one of the major pushes behind the development of factory systems. Get the workers to all have to report to the same place and it's way easier to monitor and control them. How odd a development in a society that was supposed to have built on "freedom."

My personal smart phone is irrelevant to anything, but I actually leave the GPS tracker turned off. Paranoid? Only because everyone is out to get me.


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## CApainter (Jun 29, 2007)

At my age, tracking is very important to me.


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## Sn0man (Sep 15, 2017)

I wouldn't ever work for an employer that tracked me. But I have options. I also don't work in an area where having someone micro-managing my productivity would even really make sense.


I believe at this stage in my painting career, if it was down to being unemployed / having to find another career or having someone monitoring the minutia of my every workday, I would opt for the career change.


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## CApainter (Jun 29, 2007)

If an employee is using a company personal device, the employer not only has the right to track the phone, but also to view data on that device. The employee's only recourse is not to accept the phone, or use their own and try to recover service costs from the employer. If the employee is using their own personal device, the employer does not have the right to snoop.


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## harlanjohnston7 (Oct 5, 2020)

I've never tracked or been tracked but it doesn't sound like a bad idea on clocked-in time.


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## wadebronson70 (Oct 6, 2020)

People are mistrustful of letting strangers into their homes, I get that.


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## Repaint Florida (May 31, 2012)

be sure it's legal before tracking someone , i have gps on companies vehicles but every employee is aware even those just riding. 

mine is more for thief , tracking only no speed reports. BTW we have tolls roads so they are tracked by that on some roads. 

as far as phone NO WAY


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## jimhoskins (Oct 30, 2020)

If an employee is clocked in and on company time I don't see what the problem is.


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