If you 're a person who hates it when your supervisor looks over your shoulder at work , you may want to stop reading this column right now . Because what follows is only going to depress you . Hitachi , the big electronics company based in Japan , is manufacturing and selling to corporations a device intended to increase efficiency in the workplace . It has a rather bland and generic-sounding name : the Hitachi Business Microscope . But what it is capable of doing ... well , just imagine being followed around the office or the factory all day by the snoopiest boss in the world . Even into the restroom . And , the thing is , once you hear about it , you just know that , from a management point of view , it is an innovation of absolute genius . Here 's how it works : . The device looks like an employee ID badge that most companies issue . Workers are instructed to wear it in the office . Embedded inside each badge , according to Hitachi , are `` infrared sensors , an accelerometer , a microphone sensor and a wireless communication device . '' Hitachi says that the badges record and transmit to management `` who talks to whom , how often , where and how energetically . '' It tracks everything . If you get up to walk around the office a lot , the badge sends information to management about how often you do it , and where you go . If you stop to talk with people throughout the day , the badge transmits who you 're talking to ( by reading your co-workers ' badges ) , and for how long . Do you contribute at meetings , or just sit there ? Either way , the badge tells your bosses . The stated intention of this is to increase productivity and get the most out of employees . But a case can be made that , however much we worry that the National Security Agency may be peeking into our lives , we should be just as concerned -- or more -- about the potential for corporations to become their own , private NSAs . And there 's not much , in the future , that employees will be able to do about it . With government surveillance , the public can complain that the state has no right to be scrutinizing the lives of its citizens so intrusively . But corporations can make the argument that supervisors have always been encouraged to keep an eye on how workers are spending their time when they 're on the clock -- and that electronic tools such as the Business Microscope are simply a 21st-century way to do that . The employers are paying for their workers ' time , the argument will go -- and if the employees do n't like being accountable for how they spend that time , they can always choose to work elsewhere . Hitachi says that by analyzing the `` enormous amount of data collected with the Business Microscope , it will be possible to propose methods to improve organizational communication and quantitatively evaluate efficacy . '' Among the activities the badges record and transmit , according to Hitachi , are `` the distance between people talking face-to face '' and `` an individual 's activity level ( active or nonactive ) , which is determined on the basis of subtle movements detected ( such as talking , nodding and silence ) . '' And the sensor badges never sleep . They never take breaks . They do n't go to lunch . As H. James Wilson , a senior researcher at Babson Executive Education , wrote in the Wall Street Journal , the badges not only transmit who employees are talking to and how long the conversations go on , but can `` also measure how well they 're talking to them . '' If you 're in a conference room with colleagues and they are animated participants in a discussion about , say , sales strategy , while you just remain quiet in your seat , the badge knows it . Businesses have long dreamed of maximum efficiency , and Hitachi says that , since the Business Microscope was first developed in its labs in 2007 , `` over one million days of human behavior and big data '' have been collected . ( You can imagine the surveillance experts at NSA , and at spy agencies for governments around the world , hearing about what Hitachi has come up with , shaking their heads in admiration , and saying : `` Boy , those guys are good ! '' ) The long-term question will be whether companies , in the name of workplace output , will want to risk the morale problems that will inevitably arise among employees who are instructed to wear such devices , manufactured either by Hitachi or by other firms that will engineer their own digital tracking machinery . Technology always wins , but victory can come with a price . And if employees bristle and become resentful about being kept on such a short electronic leash , that could bring about productivity problems of a different sort . Unhappy workers are not motivated to put in extra effort . Of course , the employees could get up from their desks , congregate in an out-of-the-way corner of the office , and bitterly complain about it all . But the badges would know . And tell .
A device , the Hitachi Business Microscope , is designed to track workers in the workplace . Bob Greene : This technology allows corporations to become their own , private NSAs . He says while maker of device says this can help increase productivity , what about morale ? Greene : Workers are likely to be resentful about being kept on an electronic leash .