It’s not Big Brother but Big Bill Gates you need to worry about.

The application by Microsoft for a patent for systems to monitor people at work at lie-detector level will anger the usual suspects, such as civil liberties advocates and trade unionists. But those most at risk are office workers, middle managers — and even bosses. It could strain the fundamental trust, essential to all businesses, between boss and worker to breaking point.

Microsoft’s application covers work-related activity such as keystrokes, information searches and activity likely to breach legal and company regulations.

But the intention is also to monitor changes in heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic response, body temperature and facial expression. These are the basis of polygraph or lie-detector tests.

Next, the company wants to match these physical changes to psychological profiles. This could indicate that an individual is stressed or frustrated, thereby signalling that they need help.

Such constant feedback about how staff are doing should enable managers to smooth performance, to help them and to create a harmonious workplace. But if senior managers can use such a system it could render middle managers superfluous.

Some people, such as astronauts, fighter pilots and firefighters are closely monitored. However, these are people in life-or-death situations. They are not the office workers whom Microsoft is aiming to monitor. Call-centre workers complain that existing monitoring dehumanises their jobs.

However, there may be a bright side to Microsoft’s application. What if we could use it to see if we really could trust an estate agent’s description? Or a delivery man’s estimated time of arrival? What if the taxman could tell if someone were lying when filling in his online tax return?

The scariest aspect is that all the technology in Microsoft’s application already exists. Microsoft is simply packaging it and adding a management and control system.

But patents require novelty: no one should have produced a similar “work of art” before. So unless Microsoft can show that it really is being novel, we can breathe easy.

Ian Grant is an information security specialist at Computer Weekly

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