Chinese tech workers outraged by surveillance tool that flags employees who look likely to quit

Chinese people working in corporate offices have to endure many indignities on the job. From having their bathroom breaks monitored by electronic timers in toilet cubicles to being barred from entering offices without smiles on their faces to being publicly shamed for using entertainment apps during office hours, white-collar workers in China are at risk of losing any sense of privacy. Now they have to deal with a new workplace surveillance tool that’s able to predict which employees are about to quit their jobs.

The controversial technology was brought to light last week after staff reductions at China’s Quora-like service Zhihu, the largest question-and-answer platform in the country. Accompanying the layoff rumors was a complaint made by an anonymous whistleblower, who alleged that he was fired by Zhihu after his manager found out about his plans to quit.

In a post (in Chinese) shared on Chinese professional networking site Maimai, the person wrote that on his first day back at work after the Spring Festival break, he was informed he had been laid off. “My boss reprimanded me. He also said to me, ‘Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re up to during office hours. I know exactly when you started thinking about leaving!’” the post read.

Included in the post was a screenshot of what he said was software used by Zhihu to flag employees who may be planning to resign. The image shows information on several metrics indicating a worker’s likelihood to quit, including the frequency of visiting employment websites, the number of job applications they’ve submitted, and even links to download PDF files of résumés the employees have sent out. 

Although Zhihu denied using any technology to monitor employees’ online activities, a string of Chinese media outlets looked into the claim and identified the software as a product from Sangfor Technologies, a Shenzhen-based company that has a wide range of offerings related to network security and surveillance. 

Per Blue Whale Media (in Chinese), an online publication covering business and finance in China, the software was built on a patent registered by Sangfor in 2018. Officially named “behavioral perception system,” the digital tool can calculate employees’ perceived resignation risk by tracking their online footprints, including browsing history and conversations with coworkers. In internal communication via emails and messaging services, a certain set of words and phrases critical of employers are flagged by the system, including bad treatment, no prospects, and low wage. 

On its official website, Sangfor boasts more than 100,000 clients, including government agencies and educational institutions. Among its extensive list of private sector clients are Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, and TikTok’s owner, ByteDance. According to marketing materials obtained by Caijing (in Chinese), customers of Sangfor’s “behavioral perception system” are mainly schools eager to solve adolescent internet addiction and companies hoping to prevent confidential information leaks, identify productivity weaknesses, and analyze employees’ tendencies to resign. In an interview with Hongxin News (in Chinese), a salesperson at Sangfor didn’t directly answer when asked if Zhihu was one of its clients, but said that the vast majority of Chinese internet companies used its services “at varying degrees.” 

While it’s unclear how many Chinese companies are currently using Sangfor’s resignation analysis system, the revelation triggered outrage among Chinese workers who condemned the technology as “a form of psychological abuse” and “a blatant invasion of their privacy.” The backlash was so significant that Sangfor removed the product from its website, but the service is likely still available for purchase upon request. 

Using surveillance tools to monitor employee productivity and digital activity while on company time is far from a new phenomenon in China. Such practices are particularly common in Chinese tech companies, where the relentless pursuit of efficiency and a lack of regulations on labor abuse and employee privacy, often resulted in overwork, burnout, and depression. 

In what’s probably the most outrageous case of workplace monitoring the world has seen, Chinese short-video app company Kuaishou faced intense criticism in 2020 after installing sensors in toilets to monitor how long employees took in the bathroom.