Implementation of IoT in Workplace Monitoring and Safety Systems

The continuous and rapid development in facilities in the workplace eventually calls for safety of the workplace premises as well as improved monitoring system. For instance, an intruder alert will be sent even if a client enters the premises. To eradicate this issue, an alert notification has to be sent only when required i.e., during an intruder detection or mishap detection. The data is collected by Raspberry Pi using the sensors interfaced to it. By employing the usage of IoT, data received from the sensors are sent to an IoT platform from where the information is passed as a notification through an email. The detected face from the video recorded by PiCam is sent to a local server using socket programming and the Face recognition is performed in the local server using Haar cascade and LBPH algorithm in Open CV. In case of an intruder detection, an e-mail notification is sent to the user. Similarly, when an accident or disaster is detected such as a fire accident or air pollution, an alert notification is sent to the user through an e-mail.

FROM WATCHED AT WORK TO WATCHED AT HOME: WORKPLACE SURVEILLANCE DURING A PANDEMIC

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities and new tensions related to workplace surveillance. Monitoring workers via digital tools to analyze everything from keystrokes to email and social media to the websites they visit is increasingly common, and the shift to remote work in the early days of the pandemic led many employers to consider new ways to monitor their employees while working from home. In this paper, we consider how the pandemic has affected office workers’ experience of surveillance, focusing on the types of monitoring they currently experience and their concerns related to future forms of surveillance. In particular, we unpack the sociotechnical implications of shifting work surveillance practices due to COVID-19, focusing on how evolving and emergent workplace surveillance practices may impact workers. Using factorial vignettes, survey respondents (N=645) read and responded to 35 scenarios about future workplace surveillance practices. Each scenario randomly varied four factors about workplace monitoring: the type of data being collected, the purpose for data collection, the actors who can access the data, and the transmission principle guiding data collection. For each scenario, respondents assessed both the appropriateness of each scenario and how concerning they found it. We evaluate this data, as well as data about respondents’ work environment before and during the pandemic, using Nissenbaum’s framework of privacy as contextual integrity. We also consider the potential harms associated with different types of monitoring.

Covid-19 and Employee Surveillance

While working from home is not a new concept, the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic has, for many in the workforce, rendered it the ‘new normal’, concomitant with enhanced use of workplace surveillance technologies to monitor and track staff working from home. Even prior to the global pandemic, organisations were increasingly using a variety of electronic surveillance methods to monitor their employees and the places where they work, whether it be in an office building or remotely. This technology traverses various facets of the work environment, including email communications, web browsing, the use of active badges for locating and tracking employees, and the gathering of personal information by employers. The application of these technologies, nevertheless, raises privacy concerns, which are exacerbated when work is undertaken in employees’ own homes, a phenomenon that has become more prevalent due to Covid-19. This article addresses the issue of electronic workplace monitoring, its implications for employees’ privacy and the role of collective bargaining in addressing this emergent practice, which has also been given new impetus during the pandemic.

Regulations Concerning Naturally Occurring Asbestos (NOA) in Germany—Testing Procedures for Asbestos

ABSTRACT In Germany, potential asbestos-containing rocks are used as raw materials for a number of engineering applications. These rocks are ultrabasites (dunite, harzburgite), igneous rocks (basalt, gabbro, norite), and metasomatic or metamorphic rocks like talcum, greenschist and amphibolite. Based on the German Gefahrstoffverordung (Hazardous Substances Ordinance), regulatory statutes exist for operations using these rocks and resultant composites and products. The authorities state that in Germany no natural rocks exist with more than 0.1 mass-% of one of the six regulated asbestos minerals. But it is well known that there are rocks with a high modal concentration of these minerals with a non-asbestiform, columnar to prismatic habitus. Under mechanical stress during handling, they can lead to fibrous cleavage fragments, which conform to the World Health Organization (WHO) “respirable asbestos fiber” definition. In view of this fact, the regulations changed in 2009, with revision of the Technical Rules for Hazardous Substances (TRGS) 517: any fibrous asbestos particles, regardless of whether or not they represent naturally occurring asbestos or are of cleavage origin, are evaluated for potential hazards associated with handling of these rocks. If the WHO fiber concentration is <0.1 mass-%, rocks and products can be used and re-used under protective measures. At concentrations >0.1 mass-%, the material is considered hazardous waste. These regulations apply to many industrial sectors that exploit and process rocks, using them in road building and track construction and when they are recycled. Analysis (by scanning electron microscopy, SEM/energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, EDS) to determine the asbestos concentration of rocks, gravels, or dusts is carried out in the <100-µm, grain-size fraction produced by sieving or grinding. The results provide a representation of a worst-case examination of the air quality during mechanical treatment of these materials. Workplace monitoring is done by air sampling to survey an exposure limit of 10,000 fibers/m3 of air (0.01 f/cc).

Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers

In this article, we examine how remote gig workers in Africa exercise agency to earn and sustain their livelihoods in the gig economy. In addition to the rewards reaped by gig workers, they also face significant risks, such as precarious working conditions and algorithmic workplace monitoring, thus constraining workers’ autonomy and bargaining power. Gig workers, as a result, are expected to have fewer opportunities to exert their agency – particularly so for workers in Africa, where the high proportion of informal economy and a lack of employment opportunities in local labour markets already constrain workers’ ability to earn livelihoods. Instead, we demonstrate how remote workers in Africa manage various constraints on one of the world’s biggest gig economy platforms through their diverse everyday resilience, reworking and resistance practices (after Katz, 2004 ). Drawing from a rich labour geography tradition, which considers workers to ‘actively produce economic spaces and scales’, our main theoretical contribution is to offer a reformulation of Katz’s notions of ‘resistance’, ‘resilience’ and ‘reworking’ as everyday practices of gig workers best understood as ‘hidden transcripts’ of the gig economy ( Scott, 1990 ). The article draws on in-depth interviews (N=65) conducted with remote workers during the fieldwork in five selected African countries.

Who cares? The impact on caregivers of suspected mining-related lung cancer

Background In the present study, we investigated the emotional, physical, financial, occupational, practical, and quality-of-life impacts on caregivers of patients with mining-related lung cancer.Methods This concurrent, embedded, mixed-methods study used individual in-depth qualitative interviews and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (version 2: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.) quality-of-life measure with 8 caregivers of patients with suspected mining-related lung cancer who had worked in Sudbury or Elliot Lake (or both), and sometimes elsewhere. Individuals who assist workers in filing compensation claims were also interviewed in Sudbury and Elliot Lake. Interviews (n = 11) were transcribed and analyzed thematically.Results Caregiver themes focused on the long time to, and the shock of, diagnosis and dealing with lung cancer; not much of a life for caregivers; strong views about potential cancer causes; concerns about financial impacts; compensation experiences and long time to compensation; and suggestions for additional support. Quality-of-life scores were below the norm for most measures. Individuals who assist workers in preparing claims were passionate about challenges in the compensation journey; the requirement for more and better family support; the need to focus on compensation compared with cost control; the need for better exposure monitoring, controls, resources, and research; and job challenges, barriers, and satisfaction.Conclusions Caregivers expressed a need for more education about the compensation process and for greater support. Worker representatives required persistence, additional workplace monitoring and controls, additional research, and a focus on compensation compared with cost control. They also emphasized the need for more family support.

Police Body-Worn Cameras: Development of the Perceived Intensity of Monitoring Scale

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are the latest and perhaps most tangible answer to complex social questions regarding the use of force, state legitimacy, and the proper role of police in a liberal democracy. How do officers experience heightened monitoring? This article pursues two objectives via two studies. In the first study, we establish a valid and reliable scale to measure police officer perceptions of the risks posed to them by the recording and distribution of BWC footage, conceptualized as Perceived Intensity of Monitoring (PIM). Based on a survey of 617 police officers, we evaluate an 11-item questionnaire and assess internal consistency and construct validity, perform exploratory factor analysis, and derive a PIM Scale composed of three factors measuring officer perceptions of discretion, disapproval, and distribution effects. In the second study, we evaluate the PIM Scale’s ability to predict officer emotional exhaustion, discriminating between BWC and non-BWC equipped officers. This study contributes to evolving work in BWC research by developing a useful measure for police administrators and practitioners charged with making decisions related to BWC implementation and policy. Further, the PIM Scale is applicable across professions other than policing, as surveillant workplace monitoring and technologies of accountability continue to expand to other contexts.