Data-driven analysis of labor seems productive, on account of its "objectivity," using scientific and quantitative measures to improve outcomes. However, by quantifying people into numbers in a spreadsheet--a practice that began during slavery and has continued through modern management practices--and by erasing the human experiences inherent to labor, these algorithms dehumanize workers. Assuming that science provides "value-free judgements" without questioning not only what social institutions influenced the creation of these algorithms, but also what the consequences of the judgements are for workers, leads to harm. By only viewing numbers, rather than people, it is easy for managers and executives within corporations to distance themselves from exploitation within the workplace.

Limitless worker surveillance with technology has exacerbated this disparity of control between workers and employers. Employers’ push for increased productivity and retention of control in lieu of working conditions as well as workers themselves allows exploitation and dehumanization to carry beyond the workplace. At this point, legal grounds for curbing limitless worker surveillance do not full exist, and may not even be effective with how pervasive these technologies can be.

Nelson, J. S. (2020). Management Culture and Surveillance. Seattle University Law Review, 43(2), 631.

Rosenthal, C. (2019). Perspective | The perils of Big Data: How crunching numbers can lead to moral blunders. Washington Post. Retrieved April 30, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/18/perils-big-data-how-crunching-numbers-can-lead-moral-blunders/

Digital monitoring influences both the disciplinary power of employers and employee control over themselves without explicit coercion. Employers have an increasing ability to exploit workers with these technologies, and employees internalize this as "competition" to increase productivity.

Furthermore, the use of wearable technologies can be categorized as a “privatization” of biopower, in that employers’ abilities to monitor their employees’ health and fitness can increase their control over workers and exacerbate power imbalances.

The dynamics between the employer (“the watcher”) and the employee (“the watched”) parallels Bentham's "panopticon," but worker agency to mobilize against their employers, whether it is able to be used or not, is an important distinction. Work has socially and historically become perceived as “freedom” under neoliberal capitalism, leading workers to engage in “voluntary servitude” to their employers.

The lack of information of what exactly these technologies entail, such as their invisible data collecting, frames them as less intrusive to workers, which could contribute to a lack of resistance to these technologies. There is a lack of accountability for this technology and for the people and companies that employ them.

Gamble, Joelle. The Inequalities of Workplace Surveillance. June 2019. www.thenation.com, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ worker-surveillance-big-data/.

Manokha, I. (2020). The Implications of Digital Employee Monitoring and People Analytics for Power Relations in the Workplace. Surveillance & Society, 18(4), 540–554