Walmart passed out around 740,000 brand new Samsung smartphones to employees. They got the phone, a case and a protection plan to use all FREE of charge — even for personal use. What they didn’t get is a cellular plan to go along with them. And that’s when I fell in the rabbit hole.
I wondered why Walmart offers a percentage off on AT&T plans, but StraightTalk (that uses Verizon towers) is sold exclusively there. So why no plan on the phone given to employees? Well… their corporate use isn’t really for making calls, that’s why.
They come with the Walmart-designed me@walmart app. Employees use it to clock in, adjust schedules, and communicate via push-to-talk. They basically replace the hand-held scanners and walkie-talkies.
But that’s not all they do.
Does the smartphone allow Walmart to know where their employees are, who they text/talk to, what websites they visit and what other apps they use? Does it allow them to be up in the bizness of their employees like Merida is up in mine?
Darrell West, Center of Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, had some blunt advice for Walmart workers: “Turn down the phone. Employees should realize when they’re using company provided phones, the company can engage in surveillance on what they do on that phone. That can include a wide range of personal, financial and social interactions. Basically, everything you do on that phone can be subject to surveillance.”
According to privacy disclosures, the “Me@Walmart” app can access employee data including financial information, precise location data and health and fitness information. Walmart promises that financial information is used for paychecks, precise location data confirms when employees clock in to work and health and fitness is used for coronavirus assessments.
Dharma’s not sure about that…
Someone I know (::cough:: ::cough::) isn’t too worried about it. If it were me, I’d use it at work and shut ‘er down the second I left the parking lot. But it’s not me, and that someone didn’t turn it off even after I forwarded the bajillion articles of warning. 🙄
I think it’s great Walmart is providing technology to help employees be better at what they do. Still, if you’re not AT work where you can use the app, why on earth would you allow it to connect to your home wifi? The app is called “me@walmart“… not “always@walmart.” It’s hard enough to separate work from life in retail.
The last thing I’d want to carry around is the bridge that connected the two even more.
TIL (Today I Learned): Aspirin and Heroin were both invented in a two-week period by the same man: Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist who worked for Bayer in the late 1880’s.