The comparison between police wearing body cameras and software engineers being monitored by screen recording is flawed. Police officers hold unique power and responsibility. They enforce laws, potentially use force, and make life-altering decisions. With such authority comes the need for transparency to maintain public trust.
Body cameras are essential for accountability, ensuring officers act lawfully and ethically in public interactions. This isn't just about ensuring an "honest eight-hour day". It's about protecting citizens' rights and upholding the integrity of the justice system.
In contrast, software engineers work in private environments where their actions don’t have the same direct impact on public safety or civil rights. They don’t have the same privileges as police, such as detaining individuals or using firearms in the line of duty, which require higher accountability standards.
Even when software engineers work on projects with life-impacting or public safety implications, they don’t operate in a vacuum. Best practices dictate that their work undergoes rigorous testing, peer reviews, and follows robust standards to ensure safety and effectiveness. Unlike police, who interact directly with the public and exercise immediate authority, engineers work in controlled environments without the same direct power over individuals.
and consider that it's absolutely certain that people died during the crowdstrike outage and recovery period (people die in and around healthcare locations all the time).
There will be some that died due to a delay in getting treatment, and|or other reason (see article for possible causes) and rightly or wrongly lawsuits will follow and judges will be making determinations of cause, etc.
Uh, if you are employed by a US company, they absolutely have the technical ability to screen record everything you do 24/7 on their hardware, and have the legal right to do so. Right now.
Cops have LESS accountability than your average office worker.
