How Microsoft Can Chase Off Your Pesky Co-Workers

A new patent will be watching you… to see who keeps treating you badly.

Workplace monitoring is nothing new. I saw back in 1995 that my employers were monitoring my time spent Web surfing. But Microsoft has a new twist on this activity, one we might like.

Microsoft is seeking a patent for technology that would monitor behavior on a video conference and in other situations around the office for behavior deemed inappropriate or unacceptable, like co-workers cutting each other off or making harsh hand gestures during meetings. Even better? It can snoop on bosses bugging their subordinates at inappropriate times.

Patent app #20110276369, first noted by Todd Bishop of GeekWire, was filed last year but just became public this month. It will monitor video conferences, telephone, text messages and other forms of digital communication for patterns of behavior that have been defined as negative or positive, and then assign a score to each person based.

Other naughty behavior would be bosses calling subordinates at home at night time and mannerisms during a video conference like wearing dark glasses in a video conference or wearing unacceptable clothing to a business meeting.

Like every other technology, this is only as bad as the people who will misuse it. We've come to live with monitoring at work, but this is a new twist and can be used against you in many ways. On the one hand, it would be nice to know that someone higher up knows that your PITA boss is calling you at 8 p.m. while you're at home. On the other hand, this could also be used against you during the annual performance review.

In its filing, Microsoft listed no specific product plans for the technology.

• Microsoft
• Infrastructure Management
• digital media
• Microsoft
• patent
• privacy
• Video Conferencing