Russia: The Bolshoi Theatre - a historic opera house in Moscow - has purchased surveillance software to monitor its staff for ‘interest in the war in Ukraine’

cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/40883629

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The Bolshoi Theatre’s management has signed an agreement to roll out special software to monitor its employees, Sistema reports. The contract for installing InfoWatch Traffic Monitor provides surveillance of 500 work computers at a cost of 21.6 million rubles ($270,000).

The program will monitor the work and behavior of employees — who are referred to in technical documents as “controlled persons.” — generating individual profiles for each staff member while recording any ‘abnormal actions.’ Criteria for being placed in a “risk group” include the use of profanity in work emails, discussing management, or preparing to change jobs. The software also flags any expressed “interest in the war in Ukraine,” along with unspecified “political views.”

Violations will be detected through artificial intelligence that creates “shadow copies” of all employee activity on social media and messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram) and web browsers. In addition, the software will log all text typed by users. The collected data will be processed by the security service in real time.

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