Worker watch

Students in American public schools have to get a pass from the teacher if they need to use the restroom or step out during class hours. From a slip of paper indicating the time and the reason for stepping out of the classroom, the system has gone digital and is recorded on a tablet.

New York City’s education department spent $368,000 on the SmartPass system in 2025, or roughly $2,200 per school, the New York Post reported.

To use SmartPass, students request permission to leave class through an app or school system. After getting approval from the teacher, the system logs the time and tracks in real time where the student is going, then determines how long they were gone. Teachers and staff can see in SmartPass which students are out of class at any moment, where they are supposed to be going, and how long they have been gone, according to the New York Post.

Meanwhile, some employers in China, such as an advertising company in Fuzhou, require workers taking toilet breaks to clock in and out using a fingerprint scan, with fines for exceeding the allotted time, the South China Morning Post reported.

An employee at a technology company in Guangzhou, southern China, learned that she was being monitored by her employer when a manager warned her in January not to use private group chats during office hours. Suspecting that a camera above her desk was monitoring her, she took its storage card and checked its contents. It alarmed her that the camera “recorded everything from texts to images on her phone and computer.” An employee at another technology company in Hangzhou, eastern China, revealed to Southern Metropolis Daily how her employer monitors workers after a manager questioned why she was away from her desk every morning between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. and warned her to be careful or risk having her bonus cut.

Her movements were recorded by the smart seat she was sitting on. The “creepy” chair could even record its user’s heart rate, breathing, and sitting posture.

Workplace monitoring in China has prompted some workers to use chat privacy software and screen protectors for their phones and office computers, according to the South China Morning Post. They are also using anti-tracking tools designed to block the monitoring of browser activity.