Patricia Silver, director of the Parkland Regional Library in Lacombe, Alberta, had the software installed on an unnamed computer technician's computer in 2004 to monitor the employee's productivity. “We thought that using an objective check through the computer would be the most fair and objective way,” she said in a July 7 Canadian Press report. “If you have something like a cataloging clerk . . . it's easy to say either 'You're doing great work' or 'You need to be more productive' or whatever. But that's not true of all the areas of our operation.”
Frank Work, Alberta's information and privacy commissioner, ruled that the software collected personal information in violation of Canada's Freedom of Information and Protection Privacy Act. Silver, however, said that library managers never looked at the computer files that were logged.
She said the library would abide by the decision, even though it left questions of accountability unanswered. “It raises the question of how do you look at people's productivity and the quality of their work in certain occupations where it's hard to tell, given the technology nowadays,” she said.
Posted July 8, 2005.