Sangfor's development of a network monitoring system that can monitor employee turnover causes
controversy
Recently, some Zhihu employees said that the Zhihu video department is undergoing a round of large-scale layoffs; and through an internal system of the company, it is possible to monitor whether employees have a tendency to leave.
Zhihu denies the claims of layoffs and the installation of monitoring systems, saying that it has never installed and used the behavioral awareness system mentioned on the Internet, and will not use similar software tools in the future. It has always been firmly opposed to the illegal collection of personal information security.
However, a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned that this type of system for monitoring employees' online behavior is indeed installed and used by many companies. For example, the "employee behavior perception system" developed by Sangfor can monitor employees' turnover intentions, such as the delivery of resumes, and the situation of employees. Use the intranet to chat, watch videos, etc. to open unrelated work websites.
netizens
"Serious invasion of employee privacy!"
In the screenshots of the "Behavior Awareness System" exposed by netizens, you can see whether employees have the tendency to leave in the background, such as the number of logins, keywords searched, and resumes delivered by an employee on websites such as 51job, Lagou.com, and Zhaopin.com. Name, delivery time, and you can download and view these resumes in the background.
The system will automatically determine whether these employees are at high risk of leaving, and include them in a dynamic table.
Many netizens expressed their shock at this, thinking that their privacy was violated: "Severe violation of employee privacy!" "Is job-hopping under control these days?" "Technology is evil", etc. Doing personal affairs doesn't take care of itself, so you can put in a resume and go home after get off work to fix it, and give people a chance to fix you."
system
A variety of "Applied Behavior Analysis" can be performed
A reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that the system is a network monitoring system called "Behavior Awareness System" developed by Sangfor, a listed company in the field of network security.
In addition to turnover intentions, the system can perform a variety of "applied behavioral analysis," including which non-work-related sites users visit during work hours.
According to the settings of the administrator, the system can monitor the work efficiency of employees, for example, according to the browsing time of websites such as video streaming, social chat, games, Weibo forums, work-related websites, financial stock speculation, etc., define the behavior of employees who are inactive and sabotage, and provide information for work assessment. refer to.
An official publicity material shows that the system can be applied to companies to conduct turnover tendency analysis, leak traceability analysis, work efficiency analysis, vicious event perception, etc. It can also be applied to colleges and universities to monitor campus online loans, addicted to the Internet, and locate poverty. Students, etc.; in addition, there are monitoring applications from other angles.
The Beiqing Daily reporter learned that the price of this system is based on different systems and the number of users of different scales. For example, a system with less than 20,000 users costs about 100,000 yuan.
Know almost
Deny layoffs and monitor employees
Regarding the statement of layoffs in Zhihu's video department that triggered the discussion of this incident, Zhihu responded that there is no layoff plan in the video business, and it also welcomes outstanding talents in the video business to join, especially in product, operation and other positions.
Regarding the monitoring system for layoffs, Zhihu clarified that after verification, it was found that the source of the incident was that a KOL posted a screenshot of a software system suspected of monitoring employee turnover on the Internet, which was misinterpreted by some people and associated with Zhihu.
Zhihu said that it has never installed and used the behavior perception system mentioned on the Internet, and will not enable similar software tools in the future.
For the screenshots of the system on the Internet, I have never contacted them, so I do not know their authenticity.
In particular, it is necessary to declare that the illegal collection of personal information security seriously deviates from Zhihu's values, and has always been firmly opposed to such systems.
The HR of a big Internet company told the Beijing Youth Daily that the design of this system is "illogical": "He is looking at opportunities for himself, why should he spend money to cut him? I think this is illegal, and the general HR We don’t need this system very much, our company does not have it.” Regarding the use of the system to monitor key backbone employees, he also said: “These people do not need to submit resumes on recruitment websites.”
lawyer
Violation of personal privacy if employees are not informed
Zhao Zhan, a lawyer from Beijing Yunjia Law Firm, told the Beiqing Daily reporter that employees' online behavior, including which webpages they visit, what products they buy, or chat with others, all belong to the scope of employees' personal information and even their privacy.
Even when using an office computer, employees enjoy personal privacy.
However, employers also enjoy employment management rights over their employees. Most employers will formulate internal rules and regulations to prohibit employees from engaging in online behaviors that are not related to work during working hours, and therefore monitor them through technical means such as monitoring systems.
Zhao Zhan said that the key to whether this situation constitutes infringement depends on whether the employer clearly informs the employees and obtains their consent before installing the monitoring system and monitoring the behavior of the employees.
Without the employee's consent, such behavior is suspected of violating the employee's personal information and privacy rights.
Of course, the specific infringer is the employer who uses this system to monitor employee behavior, and the company that develops this system does not necessarily constitute infringement.
Therefore, this kind of software, like a surveillance camera, is actually a neutral tool, and whether it constitutes an infringement mainly depends on the behavior of the user of the software.
RAM
Sangfor shares fell 1.77% on the day
The operating entity of Sangfor is Sangfor Technology Co., Ltd., which was established in 2000. The chairman, chief manager and legal representative are all He Chaoxi, and its major shareholder is a company registered in Hong Kong.
The business scope includes technical development, sales and related technical services of computer software and hardware.
In May 2018, Sangfor was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
According to Sangfor’s 2021 interim report, the company’s main income was 2.586 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48.26%; the net profit attributable to the parent was -132.9544 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.81%; the debt ratio was 33.61%, the investment income was 36.8523 million yuan, and the financial expenses were -104.2411 million yuan. Yuan, the gross profit rate is 66.87%.
The previous 2020 annual report showed that the company's total operating income in 2020 was 5.46 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.9%; the net profit attributable to the parent was 810 million, a year-on-year increase of 6.7%; earnings per share were 2.01 yuan.
During the reporting period, the company's gross profit margin was 70%, a year-on-year decrease of 2.2 percentage points, and its net profit margin was 14.8%, a year-on-year decrease of 1.7 percentage points.
From the perspective of business structure, the revenue brought by the network security business is about 3.349 billion yuan, accounting for 61.35%; the proportions of cloud computing and IT infrastructure, basic network and Internet of Things are 29.15% and 9.5% respectively. %.
Affected by the aforementioned events, Sangfor's stock price fell 1.77% on the 14th to close at 144.50 yuan, with a total market value of 60.071 billion yuan.
Key words
Sangfor Behavior Perception System BA
In the official introduction, Sangfor said: "Sangfor Behavior Awareness System BA is another major subversive innovation of Sangfor Internet behavior management. Based on the massive Internet logs of Internet behavior management, it conducts in-depth modeling and analysis of user behavior characteristics, and continuously launches Behavior-aware applications in different scenarios continue to mine data value, help organizations gain insight into behavioral risks, and simplify operation and maintenance management.”
The Qichacha App shows that "Sangfor Behavior Perception System BA" was first released in 2016 and applied for related patents in 2018.
The main selling point of this system is to help customers give full play to the value of data through data analysis, realize visual management of Internet access, and gain insight into risk behaviors in advance.
Specifically, the original intention of the design of this system is to avoid the loss or impact of the company's core backbone employees' sudden departure from the company. By identifying the user's online behavior, the turnover intention analysis can identify employees with turnover intention in advance, and help enterprise administrators to do Good employees' turnover tendency is discovered in advance and effectively intervened to reduce the company's losses.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily saw that, as introduced in the user manual, the device includes some common job search websites, and only performs data analysis on http URLs, and administrators can also customize URLs.
According to the settings, relevant data will be output on the homepage of the analysis of turnover intention, from the two aspects of departments and individuals, including "number of people with turnover intention", "number of people at high risk", "department prone to turnover" and "employees with turnover intention".
According to the user's resume delivery, the number of visits to recruitment websites, the number of search keywords on the site and the number of job applications on the site, the user's turnover risk tendency is judged.
If the user submits resumes or applies for jobs on the site, the device will be marked as high-risk, and if the user only visits the recruitment website multiple times, the device will be marked as suspected.
This group of articles / reporter Wen Jing