With another round of MCO on the way, we predict that people would be buying more ergonomic and better chairs to WFH. Meanwhile in the land of China, a Chinese company called Hebo Technology got flamed for using a "smart" cushion to sort of spy on employees.
If you're wondering what does the smart cushion do, basically it was designed to help monitor on a person's health conditions like sitting down too long, blood pressure and so on. It's also said to check the heart rate, breathing, posture and even fatigue levels! Sounds pretty good, right? Well, turns out that's not the case.
Image credit from Asia One
According to an employee named Wang, she posted about this discovery when approached by an HR colleague on why she was always away from her desk from 10 AM - 10.30 AM. Although the colleague also joked about cutting her bonus from her actions, Wang felt "naked at work" and believe all the employees were tricked. She also felt concerned that all the data collected are constantly checked by the HR and the employer
Obviously, the social post soon grabbed attention and went viral. In the company's defence, the spokesperson explained the smart cushions are meant to "collect trial data" before releasing them to the market. He also said the data collected wouldn't be included in any work performance and salary reviews. Despite this, a possible legal action could be taken as sharing collected data with the HR department violates the agreement of keeping the data secret.
The news has been spread across online
A smart cushion that monitors our health condition is pretty cool, but spying on employees whether they are on their desks working is unethical. Might as well get replace them with robots to do the work. But what do you folks think? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more trending tech news at TechNave.com.
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