Public Scholarship

Wearable technologies are revolutionizing the way we understand and manage work. On the ground information about the conditions and context of work is no longer limited to verbal feedback or post hoc reports, but can stream directly and immediately from a sensor-enriched workforce. This allows for faster detection, prediction and analysis across many industrial workplace settings. From activity trackers that measure wellness information, to unique devices that predict musculoskeletal disease and measure vibration exposure – these are just some of the devices becoming more common in today’s workplaces.

While tracking the productivity and health and safety of employees is not new, many are concerned about the potential for these devices to extend various powers of surveillance inside the body. Previous research has provided some indication of how employers are using wearables and the data produced by them; but to date, there has been little discussion of the privacy implications of these devices, let alone in the Canadian context. To address this gap, we examined the technical and informational capabilities of currently available wearable technologies.

In all aspects of life, personal information is collected and analyzed by organizations that produce various outcomes—surveillance is not simply good or bad, helpful or harmful, but it is never neutral. These three short films were created to raise awareness about how large organizations use data and how these practices affect life chances and choices. We need to consider these implications, and critically examine the logics and practices within big data systems that underpin, enable, and accelerate surveillance.