What are your thoughts on using personal cellphones to track employees at work? Is it legal? We now have to download an app on our own phones to clock in, but the app only works on-site. Join the discussion! #EmployeeTracking #WorkplacePrivacy #LegalConcerns
Get an old Nokia brick the size of a cordless. Oops, can’t have apps 🤷🏻 better issue me a company phone I can leave on prem.
GPS locations can be spoofed.
I have an app I use for work, to clock in and out. I also have the option to use a time clock inside the building.
I have my privacy settings set up so they only know my location when I am using the app AKA punching in or out from the app.
its all a tip-toe, tip-toe…. until you are theirs 24-7-365
in the strongest terms, i state
Fuxk this!!
My last job had an app like that.
According to my manager, they couldn’t access any location data. I don’t know. I don’t think he’d straight up lie, but I don’t think he’s savvy enough to use the app properly.
On the other hand, a few times I was half way home before I remembered to punch out, and my supervisor used to leave once a week for over an hour to watch his kid’s soccer game, and nothing came of it.
So, maybe employers can track employees with the app, and my workplace was just really lax about it.
What you could do is just put the app on an old phone and leave it at work.
The app could very well use wifi, bluetooth or gps to geolocate you. If you’re using android, you can disable gps permissions for that app and say “i don’t know why it doesn’t work”.
At that point I downgrade phone to an old brick model. Either company phone or old style clocking in machine.
“Sorry, boss, I don’t have a personal cellphone. Can the company provide one for me, if I’m going to need to use it?”
Any job where they’ve insisted this I’m pretty much insist on having a phone from them or finding a different thing cuz they’re not putting it on my phone. Currently I’m an independent contractor and I only have one phone but I also have Insider information on what exactly the app I use has access to from a friend that used to be one of the managing people for the company I contract for. They got mad at me at one point cuz I don’t have the GPS on too bad.
Are they paying your phone bill? If not they don’t have any right to use it for their app. They can make it an option for mutual convenience, but not a requirement.
If they’re not providing a company phone… screw that.
Hell no
Most of the apps should have web interface
Fuck no. I am not using my own devices for work, ever.
My job had something like this until recently.
For many years, we had a regular digital card-slash thing where you held your door card up to the clock and it recorded that you were clocking in or out.
Then they eliminated those and forced us to log on to a website, enter our usernames and passwords, and press some buttons. Much more work than a simple card-slash, but it was nice because you could bookmark the site and clock in while stepping out of the elevator; no lines at the time clock anymore.
Now they’ve eliminated the cellphone option and we have to clock in from the PC site, from our work computers, which basically means we have to be at work, having found a seat, having started up the PC, having gotten online with no hiccups, and logged on through a specific web site. It adds up to a few minutes of time theft per day.
So I actually prefer the cell phone, as annoying as it is. What do you mean by “will not allow you to clock in unless you are on the site”; do you mean site as in physical location? Is it just checking using nearby Wi-Fi networks to see that you’re at the site, or is it tracking your location all the time?
Hey I had concerns about this at my own job, and I emailed HR about my concerns. They said that they are not tracking our places and that it’s perfectly fine to click no on the do you want location on. Hr said it is a way to make us remote workers clock in and out in case we choose to not stay at home all day. I asked for all this in writing, and sure enough they sent it. So I did exactly what they asked, turned off location services entirely. But now, I clock in and out via my phone even if my computer is 2 feet away. It’s been 5 months and I have yet to recieve any abuse of time card notifications or any thing like that. I work at a fortune 500 company, so not all companies are shady, in fact they try to help sometimes, just my 2 cents.
Worked at a hotel where they had something similar. Except it would be able to track you in the building, and it gave you a list of what you needed to do. At the time I was just laundry attendant on the weekends.
They wanted me to download the app, I refused. They said it was mandatory, I said “why? I’m just doing laundry.” Eventually they told me I needed to because it’ll help me know where the other girls are at. My phone never had enough space on it because it was a crappy older version of a BLU phone. Even showed them. They then requested I delete some other app and download theirs. I still refused.
They hated me. But I at least got the job done.
Use a Fake GPS app on an Android phone, set the position to your work place and clock in from anywhere in the world 😁
I’m an office manager and one of my responsibilities is handling our time tracking. We use this feature. It’s called a geo fence. We cannot see where employees are. It only recognizes if they’re within the geo fence. Not sure about other software that has the same feature, but I’d guess they’re all pretty much the same.
Ooh that’s a no.
My staff has the *option* to do this if they want to, but as the manager I prefer they clock in at the time clock, because then they can see any notes we’ve put up about the day ahead. If it were 100% up to me, we would hand-write our clock-in and clock-out, lol.
But some of them are GenZ and asked if it was possible to clock in via the app. I’ve explained why his isn’t the best idea and why it kind of sucks from a worker perspective, but they’re kids so they shrug at me. EVERYTHING is through their phones so they don’t see this as being any different.
I hate it because it’s just one more stupid thing I have to monitor. I don’t see any of them trying to game the system and I only have four employees right now anyway but ad a GenX manager, I kind of want to do as little as possible while still getting the necessary shit done.
Nope, nope and nope. You want my personal phone used for work? You pay my phonebill. Period
I’ve insisted on compensating team members when I was part of the committee that thought this was a brilliant idea. Sure – then compensate them for using their own device or you give them one.
“Hey, we can see you’re at home can you come in and cover”
My organisation has a 2FA app, fortunately I have a company phone. Wouldn’t go on my own phone
https://preview.redd.it/827w7j4uj1wc1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b13e5005a78e3992cd35eeefe0801d8179a8bc0e
If a job requires you to use something for the job (ie a phone to clock in) they should pay for the phone and any ancillary minutes, data, storage that the phone requires
1st – I would require everything in writing.
2nd – What is the compensation for using your personal equipment, for work purposes.
Or issue the company a monthly $100 bill, for services.
3rd – I would place this app on a 2nd hand phone.
* Leave phone at work – password 1234 – for a co-worker to type you in.
Step 1) Get old phone.
Step 2) Put app on phone.
Step 3) Turn phone on when you arrive at work
Step 4) Turn phone OFF as soon as you’ve clocked in.
Repeat step 2 to 4 when it comes time to clock out.
Really this is BS. What are they going to do if your phone dies? Tell you not to work until you get it fixed or replaced? They have got to have a way for you to clock in and out without using your own phone. If you really want to mess with them, make sure your battery is low when you show up and drain it over the day so you “can’t clock out”. Wait to see how quickly they resolve the issue.