Buzz: County may spy on employee computers

Sources have shared Escambia County Administrator Janice Gilley has asked the county’s IT department to look into installing ActivTrak, a cloud-based monitoring tool that would let the county track the activity on employees’ computers.

ActivTrak collects data on URLs, title bars of websites as well as screenshots of what employees are doing on their computers

The monitoring software is invisible to the user, so employees will not know its installed. The software gathers and sends data to a dashboard.

The dashboard and Team Pulse screens give a snapshot view of what employees’ computer usage. Management can drill down into reports on groups – for instance, maybe fire stations – and individuals to view data such as top websites visited, working hours and any activities flagged as high risk. The software creates a history of screenshots taken from anyone’s screen.

ActivTrak has some proactive features. It can block websites and applications or get notifications of flagged usage. A pop-up message can be put on the screens of an employee who has ventured onto an unproductive or malicious site.

 

 

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