Topic of compelling topicality and, similarly, of divisive impact.
(by Biagio Costanzo - Company Director and Aidr Partner)
I try to go against the tide ...
We have now fallen into the limbo of Smart Working., Or rather teleworking, or rather Home Working (which is what it is), in short, these methods of work performance, which until December 2019 were topics of pilot projects and which concerned only 13 % of companies, but with the outbreak of the health emergency, they concerned the majority of the dependent and non-dependent population, both public and private and today only 4% have never experienced it.
There are many positive aspects such as the environmental aspect, according to a research carried out by Confindustria and Federmanager, agile work has caused fewer trips, significantly contributing to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and allowing everyone to make economic savings that cannot be underestimated. In addition, the increased capacity for innovation of companies, thanks to training, has been able to support 56% of its workers in smart working at the same time.
This is why more than half of the companies, 54% to be exact, say they are sure to use smart working not only during this long phase of health emergency, but also afterwards, permanently.
Then there is also a wide audience of those who say that, from home, the organization of work and the timing in which to mediate work and support for the family is more manageable.
On the other hand, there is everything else.
It is utopian to believe that you can archive performances in presence with the stroke of a pen. First of all, it is not fully reflected on the fact that yes, there are huge savings on rents and related expenses but this conflicts with the contemporary economic crisis of the related sectors, from real estate / construction, in fact, to cleaning / maintenance / plant engineering services. to that of external catering, bars, restaurants, bistros etc. etc, that internal, the company canteens.
Then there is the social effect as it is called. How can we underestimate, from the anthropological point of view and our identities, the effects of the human / physical relationship that must exist between human beings and therefore between colleagues?
The lack of social relationships and the impossibility of physically interacting with one's work group, interactions that cannot be definitively replaced by video appearances, sometimes only in voice to preserve a sense of privacy in the environment from which one connects. And just by dwelling on the "connections" let us not forget some technical-logistical problems, such as connection problems, the limited spaces available and the absence of infrastructures and tools suitable for working from home.
There is a clear risk of excessive recourse to videoconferencing, on the alienation of work, and on working without time limits.
And let's not dwell on the DAD and on the recent report from the infantile neuropsicatria departments of two large hospitals in the capital that indicate the exponential increase in anxiety, fear and depression after a year of distance learning.
Now we are in a bubble, we are still somehow suspended but sooner or later the issue of job security, no longer only in the offices but from the "new" offices that are their homes, will emerge exponentially and will happen when inevitably an event of risk will happen and therefore we must not be caught unprepared even on this but study and prevent. There is also talk of new mobility, which is also welcome to plan the "ecological revolution" so much praised but which risks remaining a simple empty slogan, if we intend to revolutionize consolidated habits and needs with scooters and bicycles in unsuitable urban arrangements or if not. really makes an effort to invest heavily in public transport to replace private means of mobility.
Which "zoombare" is beyond ... and safety?
As we said, since the outbreak of the first wave of this health crisis, videoconferencing systems have had a real boom in this pandemic period, and this is the reason why the most significant security problems relating to these have been highlighted. applications. Like me, I believe that most professionals, employees of private and public companies, have used videoconferencing systems several times a day in the last year.
The intense use of video conferencing systems, such as webinars, live streaming with platforms such as Zoom, Teams, Skype, Google Meet Jitsi, Live YouTube, WebinarNinja, JetWebinar, GoToWebinar, WebEx, GetResponse, Livestream, Slack, immediately highlighted the vulnerability of these systems, even creating new Anglo-Saxon words, such as "Zoombombing".
Certainly, with regard to data breaches, it is confirmed that many videoconferencing applications are already equipped with some security and protection measures, such as the use of keywords or the activation of "waiting rooms", where the participant in the conference is made to wait, waiting to be connected but the risk is, in recent months, with the IT infrastructures cloned from the central servers of the company data centers to the laptops connected to the real home Wi-Fi.
Of course, many applications are also equipped with cryptographic protection but there is certainly no guarantee of a total possibility of putting the physical security of the networks under control, just as it becomes even more complex to control user behavior.
Public and private companies must therefore not only make the application available, but rapid training programs must be launched, which allow users not to run into anomalous behavior, unfortunately frequent.
Some educational programs on the subject are already available on social media and it may be appropriate for the videoconference administrator to ask all participants to have taken good note of these correct behaviors.
Another thing, for example, is the willingness on the part of administrators to examine security policies, directed at the user, which must be not too invasive and easily respectable, so as not to give a negative aspect to the entire videoconference.
The medium-long term risk concerns the area concerning the archiving of the contents of a videoconference. It is well known that videoconferencing produces a large amount of data, which also includes business documents, graphic designs, computer sketches, mathematical calculations, economic data, audio and video recordings of the conference, drawings, diagrams.
Hence the need to introduce procedures and processes that provide for the cancellation of these data, when it is no longer necessary to keep them, both for reasons related to the review of what has been discussed, and to make the content available for any audit operations, provided that they are not therefore classified documents covered by sw of maximum reliability and highly impenetrable. In fact, all this clearly also concerns those who work for companies or apparatuses operating in the military, defense, national security or critical infrastructure sectors, an even more delicate topic that, for convenience, for those interested, I facilitate my recent intervention. https://www.aidr.it/sicurezza-digitale-una-nessuna-e-centomila./.
There are other tools such as "geofencing" which, for example, given the current suspension of the Privacy shield agreement with the United States and with the entry into force of Brexit, could be indispensable in order to prevent data relating to a videoconference can be archived in the United States or the United Kingdom.
Returning to Home Working, it is also necessary to reflect on the presence of cameras and microphones in the participant's home which could be insufficiently protected and could allow third parties to capture the images and audio of the conversation in progress.
These days the news is that the big companies Google and Microsoft are starting to call back to the office, smart working only with authorization. Google's HR management has announced that employees will be required to work at the company at least three days a week from 1 September. Furthermore, from the same date, those wishing to work more than 14 days a year off-site (and up to a maximum of 12 months, in exceptional cases) will have to apply and wait for a go-ahead on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, Google also reserves the right to call the staff back to the office at any time.
Even in Italy, large companies are looking for a squaring of the circle between physical and “remote” presences, in view of the coming months. On one side of the scale there are the many savings as indicated above but to act as a counterweight, the fear of less internal cohesion.
Article 1 of our Constitutional Charter is often quoted but I would like to mention Articles 3 and 4 where work is not only conceived as a right, which must guarantee "the full development of the human person", but also as a duty that must contribute " to the material or spiritual progress of society "in fact!
And to do this, the real challenge is knowing how to combine the supervening flexibility of times and places, which is a revolution that frees us from dispersive habits, with human interaction. We cannot be overwhelmed by all this, we must return to Man and his identity, every change must find a society capable of interpreting it, prepared, that goes beyond the emergency, this is also a revolution that could, if not regulated and understood to the end, lead us to other more harmful evils over time and this, then, may seem anything but “smart”.