Teleworking has brought many advantages within the work environment. But if something continues to bring businessmen to their heads, it is the question of whether their workers really are sitting in front of the computer full-time or make use of the typical Spanish picaresque to “get away” with the excuse that nobody sees them. And this is where Microsoft comes into play with its new “security” tool that really seeks to end these distrusts when it comes to allowing work from home.
It is difficult to control a person who is teleworking without endangering their privacy. For obvious reasons, we cannot have a camera to watch you, nor install spyware on the computer, especially if it is not a piece of equipment provided by the company, much less without the worker being aware of and agreeing to this software.
While there are companies that are against allowing workers to telework, others are in favor of this practice, as it brings many day-to-day benefits and reduces office expenses to a minimum. Microsoft, for example, is one of the companies that is in favor of teleworking. Of course, as a company it also wants guarantees that its employees comply with their schedules and their work. And, for this, it has just launched this new function for Windows 11 that, without a doubt, will give something to talk about soon: presence detector.
What is “presence detector”
With this function, Windows 11 will be able to know if the person is sitting in front of the PC or not. As the company claims, the main objective of this function is to allow the operating system to detect if the user is using the computer and, if not, directly block the session to prevent other people from using the PC without permission and accessing the confidential data. In this way, unnecessary programs and processes can also be suspended when the user is not there, turn off the screen and maximize battery life.
Currently there are many ways to generate false activity in front of the computer so that it seems that we are sitting in front of it and working, preventing, for example, the PC from going to sleep. And this tool wants to fight precisely with these applications. Although Microsoft talks about it as a security tool (and, furthermore, it is optional to activate it or not), it has an API, and several methods and events that can be used by bosses, and programs like Microsoft Teams or Slack, to control to the users.
It is true, as always happens, that users will find a way to bypass this restriction and trick the system into detecting its presence. But the slightest mistake can reveal the cake and cause us problems within the company, even losing work. And it is that, although comfortable, teleworking is still a double-edged sword where, either we are responsible and we do the job just like in the office, or we have everything to lose.
