Google is launching a new feature that allows businesses to monitor messages!

YNP:

Google has announced that businesses will soon be able to monitor and read all the text messages employees exchange on their work phones, thanks to a new update to the Android operating system.

Upcoming updates to the Android operating system will give employers unprecedented power to monitor their employees’ communications, as they will allow businesses to record and review all RCS messages (the advanced version of SMS that supports images and videos) sent and received on work devices.

The new archiving feature is designed to meet the needs of highly regulated businesses, such as financial institutions, brokerage firms and government agencies, which are required by laws such as U.S. Securities Exchange Commission regulations to maintain complete records of their communications. It will also allow managers to monitor internal communications for the purposes of investigating or resolving workplace disputes.

According to the official Google blog, the feature will work by integrating third-party archive applications with the messaging system, allowing IT to immediately access the content of each message, including modified or deleted copies, while notifying the employee of the existence of the monitoring process.

Although Google has confirmed that this feature will not affect encrypted apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram, it raises crucial questions about the limits of privacy in the work environment, especially after many have come to view instant messages as a relatively personal space compared to official work email.