Is it possible to monitor employee’s laptop while working from home?



The situation
You work on a company's laptop. You have this laptop with you at home and in your business trips. And of course, you do not always work on it. When you do not work, you might want to use it for your personal needs, like browsing the Internet, accessing your online banking or your personal emails, chatting, playing games. This is all OK if you are done with your work duties for today. But there is a big concern that you have.

Your concerns
So, the concern is: you uses; can your company track time, Internet usage, software usage, basically anything on its laptop?


The answer
Yes, your company can track time, Internet usage, software and documents usage on its own laptop – see monitor laptop employees

At first, your company is legally allowed to do it.

Your company can technically track its laptop using third-party software in the following cases:
  1. If at the moment when you receive your laptop there is software installed already. There already can be some time tracking software installed.
  2. If you ever physically connect your laptop to the company's local network. When you login to your company's server, some software can be installed automatically; many companies have this process centralized. You might not even notice as installation can be "quiet".
  3. If you ever connect to the company's network using VPN. This is just another way to connect to the company's local network. So, see the item 2.


Using time tracking software your company can record the following information:
  1. Computer monitoring – Computer-related activities – login, logout time, usage interval;
  2. Software usage monitoring - software usage, documents accessed;
  3. Internet monitoring – websites visited.
  4. Time spent on each of these tasks.
  5. User login names.

  6. Screens, keystrokes, emails or chats content.


Your company cannot technically track its laptop using third-party software in the following case:
If you install only Microsoft software, if you do not install any company's or third-party software, if you connect to your company's work environment using Terminal Server, Citrix server, Remote Desktop– then it will be not possible to monitor your laptop using some third-party software.



Your company can monitor Internet usage with some hardware, if you use company's Internet access. Just in this case it is not possible to see time spent on each web-page. 

Comments

  1. DeepakAugust 17, 2020 at 4:47 AM

    Thanks for sharing the article on Employee Monitoring Software
    LogNTrack help companies to maximize employee productivity and keep track of all projects with best in class time tracking.

    LogNTrack is used by over 1000+ teams across the world, it helps to manage the time, attendance, application usage, project management, timesheet and much more.
    If you have any remote or offshore team then this will be the perfect solution to keep all things in sync.


    LogNTrack Major Features:
    Real time Screenshots
    Graphical Reports
    Invisible mode /stealth mode
    Activity monitoring
    Project management /task manager
    Timing tracking
    Record keystroke
    Data security
    Website/ulrs Tracking
    Attendence and shift Management

    ReplyDelete
  2. FlowaceFebruary 11, 2024 at 9:41 PM

    This scenario raises valid concerns about privacy and monitoring boundaries when using a company-issued laptop for personal activities. It underscores the importance of understanding company policies regarding monitoring and ensuring clarity on what activities are permissible during personal use.
    Employee Monitoring Software

    ReplyDelete

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