‘Bossware’ and burnout: The psychology of workplace surveillance, with Tara Behrend, PhD

Workplace digital surveillance, or "bossware," is increasingly pervasive, with employers utilizing technologies ranging from keystroke trackers to facial recognition to monitor productivity and safety. While organizations often claim these tools improve efficiency, they frequently incentivize harmful behaviors, such as taking unsafe shortcuts to meet metrics, and create significant psychological distress by forcing employees to remain in a state of constant, high-alert performance. Dr. Tara Behrend, an industrial-organizational psychologist, notes that these surveillance systems often lack clear objectives and disproportionately impact workers with less organizational power. Furthermore, the United States currently lacks federal regulations to protect employees from invasive monitoring, unlike the European Union or Australia. As AI-driven tools become more sophisticated, the risk of invisible, non-work-related data collection grows, necessitating both stronger legal protections and a reevaluation of how performance is measured to prevent the dehumanization of the workforce.