SMIRKING... NINE TO FIVE New gizmo tracks facial expressions at work
IF you hate your boss, look away now... as the big cheese may be watching to see if you’re smiling.
Employers could soon be offered expression tracking technology which tells if their workforce is happy or stressed.
Rotacloud say their Big Brother styletech will gauge happiness levels as well as identifying “fear, anger or disgust”.
It is hoped it can help bosses act early if a worker appears at risk of going into a crisis. But the firm admit emotion snooping could raise privacy issues.
The sensors can reportedly “recognise a wide variety of complex emotions”apart from picking up “overt emotions” like smiling, frowning, laughing or scowling, it logs “tiny changes in micro expressions”. Snapshots are taken throughout the day to gauge any “mood changes”.
Some 40 workers are undergoing a trial at the firm’s HQ in York. If the tests prove successful the technology, which can also plan rotas and make sure the right person is clocking in, will be rolled out further. Rotacloud’s David Brandon told the Sunday People: “Our terminal takes a photograph of employees when they clock in or out.
“This means we have access to a large bank of employee images. Using
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“Analysing thousands of these images, in bulk, gives a very general picture of the real-time mood of our team.
“It also gives us data on the conscious or subconscious emotions of staff at different times of the day, month, and year.
“This means we can analyse trends. For instance are staff happier at certain times of the day? Or was there a significant upswing or downswing in the general mood at a certain time?
“If this tech can create a barometer of office mood we think it might have the potential to monitor wellbeing.”
But he promised: “We absolutely won’t be using emotion tracking to make important decisions such as hiring, or in our interview process, yet, or if ever.
He added: “There are issues of privacy to be addressed. People’s unconscious emotions cannot be held against them.”
But if the novel technology is a worldwide hit, one thing is certain – the firm’s bosses will be on Cloud Nine.