Part of the issue is that data is inherently viewed as an asset rather than nuclear waste Ideally, companies would view data as something they only want the bare minimum of in order to function before discarding it as soon as they can Knowing my birthday to send me an email is unnecessary

Also, the 2010s/2020s decline of technical knowledge in management and cloud hosting mania leads to multiple layers of outsourcing between an organisation’s understanding of its privacy requirements and their capability to take action to support those requirements.

It’s almost like New Zealand’s mania for ‘light touch regulation’ isn’t actually effective in protecting ordinary people’s rights, whether it be privacy, health & safety, to take industrial action, to participate in a democracy that has integrity…

“If New Zealand wants to be serious about privacy, then organisations need to be held accountable for their failings […] That includes introducing significant fines, and real consequences.” Privacy Act 2020 turns 5 – changes are needed 1-Dec-2025 www.privacy.org.nz/tuhono-conne...

‪ Why, oh why, do there seem to be so many data breaches in NZ ? “The Privacy Act doesn’t provide sufficient incentives for many organisations to understand or meet even the most basic privacy requirements.” (Michael Webster, Privacy Commissioner, 1 Dec 2025 www.privacy.org.nz/tuhono-conne... )

I wonder to what extent the data from this surveillance technology is/could be used for risk assessment that would lock people out of housing and jobs.

Think Office365 is just about Word, Outlook and Teams? What if we told you it can also be used by your employer to spy on you?

Big Tech’s rollout of algorithmic surveillance tools have made app-based workers’ ability to afford to live #NewYorkCity even more precarious. Policymakers in #NYC can fight back against this latest instance of corporate greed by banning surveillance wage-setting: www.nelp.org/to-make-new-...

"Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices."

Great commentary by Rob Campbell on the profoundly depressing consequences of all the undermining of employment law we've seen in New Zealand this year. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609... As he says quoting Jim Bolger "“in the end you just have to decide what kind of country you want to live in.”

"This is what happens when any large, concentrated industry is allowed to grow unregulated, and all signs suggest it will get much worse."

I am looking forward to digging into the most recent special issue of the Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal on Privacy@work digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cllpj/

In May, Human Rights Watch released a report showing how gig platforms use opaque algorithms to erode workers' wages. Now a new investigation finds Instacart is running AI price experiments: charging different people different prices for the *same* groceries, sometimes by more than 23%. Read this:

To me automatic transcription of video call creates more opportunities for employers to find grounds to dismiss, discipline and fail to promote anyone who commits thought crimes/expresses views or sentiments that dissent from whatever the prevailing view of leadership is at the time .

This thread up and down. Also, I've been beating this drum about the danger to the information ecosystem for six and half years now. A few links below:

Oh this. So much this ⬇️ 👍👍👍👍 #nzpol

On January 1, Illinois begins to regulate employer use of AI, making it a civil rights violation to use AI tools that result in discrimination based on protected characteristics in hiring, promotion, discipline, termination, or other employment terms and requiring notice of AI use. #AIBillofRights

How employers spy on you youtu.be/jBsSLcK6h8A?...

I am looking forward to LSAANZ conference www.canterbury.ac.nz/study/academ... where we'll be launching the book I co-edited with @joshfairfield.bsky.social on workers right to privacy which the printer just delivered. Huge thanks to @juanochoa.bsky.social for the cover art which looks fantastic!

Headline: "AI can replace 11.7% of workforce" Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI

I vividly remember reading Jeremy Rifkind's "the End of Work" back in 1995 as well as Stanley Aronowitz "the Jobless Future". Metaverse hype is another iteration of what people said about Second Life. AGI is another iteration of the Singularity. History doesn't repeat it echos.

"Our experience of technology is usually related to an existing system of power"

Attention Wellington people interested in privacy and workers' rights. Please consider yourself invited to a public lecture and the launch of book edited by me and @joshfairfield.bsky.social at 11.30 a.m GBLT1 on Wednesday 26 November. (More details in the link) www.wgtn.ac.nz/business/eng...

"In writing this article, I realized that I could endlessly tie much of our reporting on attacks on civil society and human knowledge to the force multiplier that is AI and the AI maximalist political and economic project." www.404media.co/ai-is-superc...

Good. Now if only Van Velden would stop attempting to overturn these judgments! The idea that you should be able to avoid your obligations under employment law by simply saying someone is a contractor (regardless of the actual nature of the relationship) makes a mockery of the law.

#nzpol HUGE VICTORY FOR WORKERS: The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Uber Drivers and their unions, saying that they are employees not contractors. Now the NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi is calling on the Government to respect this ruling and uphold the rights of platform and gig economy workers:

Attention people interested in New Zealand employment law- the Supreme Court is releasing its decision on the UBER case on Monday 17 November www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/6-Goi...

In the Inequality.org op-ed, researchers Mishal Khan and Kung Feng lift up four core themes that emerged from their analysis of recent AI principles and statements released by unions and other worker organizations. laborcenter.berkeley.edu/a-first-look...

John Campbell asks is Uber's low pay model the future of work in New Zealand? I'd say, at the rate we are going, yes. More and more people are going to be employed by platforms and it's not clear those platforms will even be in New Zealand. www.1news.co.nz/2025/11/08/j...

Real-time End-to-end Surveillance.

It is beyond upsetting to me how after a tragedy of the magnitude of Pike River the government is weakening our occupational health and safety law. Anna Osbourne and Sonya Rockhouse are asking for signatures to their open letter to the government about this. www.together.org.nz/stand_with_pik

I think the banner of democratisation is a fig leaf to what's really going on which is the dehumanisation, disciplining and disempowerment of ordinary people. Bad tech make us lonely, makes us stupid and makes us scared.

Read more about the project at our website: www.dair-institute.org/projects/dri...

🚨NEW🚨 from DAIR: Today we are releasing "Driven Down", a new report on how workplace technology enables Amazon to steal wages, hide labor, intensify poor working conditions, and evade responsibility. Read the full report here: drive.google.com/file/d/1yBxy...

I think the Public Service Commission has breached good faith here see s32 (iii) of the Employment Relations Act ie. "the union and the employer— (iii)must not undermine or do anything that is likely to undermine the bargaining or the authority of the other in the bargaining"

This is an upsetting article about the underpaid and exploited hidden human labour in the AI supply chain www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/art...

Andrew Lensen and I have developed a fortnightly newsletter called The Reading List It does exactly what it says on the tin: ten good, interesting or challenging things we've read, watched or listened to in the last fortnight. Did I mention its totally free. open.substack.com/pub/lensenmc...

New Policy Brief by Data & Society "The Privacy Trap: How “Privacy-Preserving AI Techniques” Mask the New Worker Surveillance and Datafication" datasociety.net/library/the-...

New report from the ITCU ituc-csi.org/Artificial-I... on why workers' unions must shape the deployment and regulation of artificial intelligence.

The Austrian Data Protection Authority ("DSB") issued a decision finding that Microsoft 365 Education illegally tracks school children and uses student data for Microsoft's own purposes. noyb.eu/en/noyb-win-...

The advantages of unionization are obvious, so why don’t more workers join unions? Employer-led union suppression strategies are a key explanatory factor. theconversation.com/the-advantag... #canlab

Dark Patterns, Deceptive Design and the Law. "This is going on my TBR list. "It explains how laws fail to address deceptive design practices and explores the implications for privacy, autonomy and consumer protection in the digital age" www.bloomsbury.com/uk/dark-patt...

So it's not just in New Zealand this happens...

I'm cautiously optimistic proposed changes to the Holidays Act are sensible. newsroom.co.nz/2025/09/24/h... But in Australia casual employees get 25% casual loading on top of their base rate to compensate for insecurity & absence of paid sick leave & annual leave- so there is room for improvement.

Uber drivers are going to strike on 13 September due to unfair pay rates, cleaning fee reimbursements policies excessive working hours and lack of representation and transparency in Uber's policies. I hope Uber listens. www.hcamag.com/nz/specialis...

“Over the past quarter century, American tech companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known” apnews.com/article/chin...

Research shows that some of the richest multi-national technology corporations - like Facebook and Amazon - are paying very little tax on the money they are making in New Zealand www.tjanz.org/big_tech_med...

My latest newsletter is about how the double standards that allows big tech to commit the most appalling crimes -- and to get away with them. whatwelost.substack.com/p/big-tech-a...

For example, making a digital platform increasingly awful for gig workers. #labor onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...