Asklemmy

Certain jobs I would. fire, police

Most jobs I would not

Imagine an 8 hour livestream of someone banging their head on the keyboard until the code magically fixes itself. Very fun.

are you ready to wear one?

I'm ready to make an elton john style jacket full of infrared leds

Absolutely not, as that would mean my company violates my country's privacy laws. In my field of work there is no valid reason for wearing a body cam.

Na, I work in IT we have more appropriate spyware than body cameras can ever be.

Absolutely not. You can justify it with whatever reasoning you want, but it would be used against employees far more than it helps employees.

The company you work for is not your friend. If it is their body can they will use it to their benefit. Any benefit you receive will be incidental or simply part if their propaganda to get you to wear it for them.

It will be used, primarily, to surveil employees. They will track your habits and ensure you are aware that every single thing you do for your shift is something your boss or their boss or their boss can come back to you with and reprimand you for. They will try to set performance targets that can be compared to your videos so they can tell you what an algorithm or a petty middle manager says you are doing wrong. Too much time helping a customer. You're not folding clothes fast enough. Walk faster. No sitting. They will set keywords. Union. Break. Curse words. Your bosses' names. They might not even review these things. The intimidation is enough. Maybe you'll get new policies. See that black guy? Follow him. Get video. The algorithm said to do it so it can't be racist. We'll pass it along to the cops.

Companies wouldn't pay for it if they didn't see a business angle and the obvious ones are control over employees and being able to use more video for "liability" defense.

Absolutely not. I like my current job, but if body cams became mandatory, I’d quit. I’d get ready to leave if they were ever even “tested” at another location.

That depends... who controls the footage?

If it's my employer, absolutely not unless the job is high liability already because then it becomes a liability for me when somebody else controls my data.

If it's just for me, sure I would wear it if it's not too much trouble and I have concerns.

Hell no, cops however should have less control over the cameras they wear.

body cams only make any sense when you're not in a fixed location and already always on camera, or when there's commonly abuses of power off camera. both are true of cops. neither are true of the cashiers at Hot Topic or whatever.

Hell no. That would turn anything other than unflinching obsequiousness towards obnoxious clients and potential fraudsters into a firing offense. Specially in the already dystopian US job market.

I've actually considered it, mainly because it'd be useful for me to document what I do and how while keeping my hands free.

My job involves a lot of hardware troubleshooting, and when people ask me a year later when and how some specific issue was resolved, it'd be a whole lot easier to check the tape.

Yes, taking notes is possible, but when you're troubleshooting an industrial system, and downtime costs 40.000$ per hour, updating your diary isn't exactly a priority.

I don't really have much of a privacy aspect to worry about - the only time it'd be beneficial for anyone would be while doing field work, and at that time I usually have 10-20 people watching and waiting anyway.

I haven't found a durable camera that I can wear discreetly, though.

You want this for DOCTORS? You want your private health information record like this? Are you freaking nuts?

I would absolutely, categorically, stop doing business wherever I see employees wearing bodycams.

I might be wearing my own small, undetectable body cam, to protect myself against workplace harassment, racism, and unfair labor practices.

I'm a walking, talking landmine for those bastards. /S

Where I work; the public facing staff, security and customer service roles, are now offered to wear one at the start of their shift. They all want to use one.

These workers face abuse - physical assault, threats, harassment - from members of the public.

What has been found is that when they turn the body worn camera on, the other person tends to stop the abuse or at least de-escalates somewhat. (Prior to having body worn cameras available, some of these staff had tried to use their phone to film when in an incident, but it almost always triggered an immediate violent response - one staff had their phone taken and smashed, another was hit in the face)

There has been a decrease in mental health injury claims since using these. My own talks with these staff are that they feel safer, and had asked their employer to procure more body worn cameras as there wasn’t enough for all the staff.

The staff are not required to have them constantly on, they press a button to switch it on when an aggressive situation is forming or they believe they are in danger.

Why doctors? Filming patients would be a nightmare in terms of privacy and data policy.

In my line of work (psychotherapy) it would be equally impossible. People are having a hard enough time as it is opening up to medical professionals, I don't think that the additional barrier of being actively filmed would help anyone.

Never.

There are things that I do where a body cam would be useful, but I wouldn't wear it for office work.

In the jobs I work at, no, I wouldn't. Body cams would only be used to snitch on people. It makes sense for surveillance to be used over people in positions of power like cops, doctors, prison guards, etc, who are known for abusing their power. Not against ordinary people or members of the public though. If retail workers wear bodycams, it's to snitch on shoplifters. If teachers wear bodycams it'd compromise kids who approach them to tell them something in confidence. Etc.

I used to wear one on the railway. We had these ones that you switch on with a big, loud sliding clasp on it, so if someone starts acting a bit shirty, you could often deter them just by starting the recording (which held the previous 30 seconds or something in its memory).

I don’t think it’s going to happen that way. Body cams are needed if you want to record people working in the field, such as police officers, but for people working at a fixed location, an office or factory or what have you, CCTV cameras are cheaper, less intrusive, and harder for a bad actor to screw with by “accidentally” covering their lens or forgetting to turn their unit on.

Sure. Why not? It will probably work like it does with US police officers, magically turning off right before the ~~murder takes place~~ self defence happens.

Seriously, I wouldn’t care at all. But it’s still a stupid idea and I would strongly oppose it. Even if only in solidarity with people it would fuck over.

A few of the supermarkets in my country have this as an option for staff. Since the pandemic there's been an alarming rise in public attacking shop staff.

Depends on the pay differential and other options. I think it's less useful for positions in my career, but it's not an absolute no.

I refuse to use camera in meetings

The ticket checkers (or whatever they are called) wear them here. I guess primarily for their own safety because people can get really mad at them.