May 23, 2005

Big Brother tracks staff

From Leo Lewis in Tokyo

A JAPANESE security company has begun offering corporate customers 
the ultimate Big Brother service: a system that tracks employees both
inside and outside the office, knows every door you have passed
through, every drawer you have opened and can tell every piece of
paper you have touched.

The sinister new "Protect 24" service from Secom is aimed at plugging
potential data leaks by letting employees know that they are under
surveillance throughout the day.

Its launch comes after several leak scandals, including embarrassment
for the Bank of Japan when the new Y1,000 design made it into an
internet auction, that have tarnished the reputation of some of
JapanAEs biggest companies.

The service means that each employee will be kitted out with a
tracking card. Sensors on doors and other office furniture will detect
where the worker is and keep a computer log. When staff are outside
the building and carrying sensitive documents, employers can insist
that they carry a small satellite tracking chip. For clients of the
premium service, individual paper documents, CDs and DVDs can be
tagged with wafer-thin chips that can detect who has handled them.

Yuji Mesaki, the Secom executive in charge of Protect 24, believes
that the service will be of huge interest to SecomAEs existing clients,
and expects more than 1,000 to sign up within the year. The service
will be offered in the UK, where it is expected to be in demand in the
financial industry, as in Japan

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Source: "Times Online"...
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13133-1623530,00.html

Cheers, Steve..

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