Surviving and Thriving in the Panopticon: Maintaining Privacy in the Workplace as a Chronically Ill Activist

Everyone has certain things about themselves they prefer to keep private. Though many will claim they "have nothing to hide," they are simply wrong, but for some of us maintaining privacy has higher stakes than for others. With employers more frequently requesting vast amounts of data on their employees, including requiring wearing fitness trackers, chronically ill people have even more reason to maintain as much privacy in the workplace as possible about their health and themselves. Activists also have myriad reasons to care about their privacy, but especially if they are working in a corporate environment that has ethics that run counter to their own, as activism is often unpaid labor and activists must get a paycheck from somewhere. This talk will discuss some of the good and bad policies towards privacy that my own company uses, as well as concrete ways to maintain your privacy in the workplace. If you feel comfortable sharing, I'd also love to have a discussion about your company and its policies towards privacy, so we can observe the local trend in which corporate surveillance of employees is moving.

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