{
  "id": "DPE-2026-0036",
  "name": "Per-person productivity scoring at work",
  "slug": "per-person-productivity-scoring",
  "name_nl": "Productiviteitsmeting per medewerker",
  "family": "data",
  "applies_to": [
    "desktop",
    "web",
    "mobile-app"
  ],
  "summary": "Work software records activity per person per interval and turns it into a figure about that person.",
  "summary_nl": "Werksoftware legt activiteit per persoon per tijdvak vast en maakt daar een cijfer over die persoon van.",
  "not_a_vulnerability": "Nothing is exploited. The software was bought to do this, it is installed by the employer, and the objection is to what it records rather than to a defect in it.",
  "mechanism": {
    "what": "Software on the work device or in the work account records what the person does at intervals: which application is in the foreground, whether keyboard or mouse moved, how long a window was idle, how many messages or tickets were handled in an hour. The rows are attributable to a named worker and are stored per interval rather than per day. A figure follows from them, a score, a percentage or a ranking, which a manager sees and which is used in conversations about the person.",
    "why_it_matters": "Employment is a relationship in which refusing costs something, so consent is not available as a basis and necessity has to carry it. Being measured minute by minute changes what people do: it rewards visible presence over work, and it turns a break, a disability or care at home into a dip that has to be explained. The worker usually cannot see their own rows while the manager can.",
    "common_causes": [
      "a feature enabled by default in remote-work or endpoint software",
      "aggregate reporting bought, per-person reporting delivered in the same product",
      "an interval left at the product default instead of set to the coarsest that serves the purpose",
      "a pilot for one team that stayed on for everyone"
    ],
    "not_this": "A measurement series from a device in the home that reveals occupancy is Reporting interval that reveals occupancy, where the subject is a household and the party a supplier. Images of what is on the worker's screen are Screen capture of a worker's device: this entry counts activity, that one records content. A figure about a team that cannot be resolved to a person is not this entry."
  },
  "detection": {
    "indicator": "The product's own output contains rows attributable to one named worker at an interval shorter than a working day: a timestamp, an identifier of the person, an activity value. Establish it from the administrator's view or from the worker's own access request, not from the product description or the dashboard.",
    "method": "document-comparison",
    "qod": 85,
    "capture_requirements": [
      "ask for the records of one person over one day, in the form the product exports them",
      "record the interval, and whether the worker can see the same rows",
      "record whether the figure is used in any assessment, and where that use is written down",
      "note the difference between what the dashboard shows as an aggregate and what is stored per person; the storage is the finding"
    ],
    "attribution": [
      "document-diff",
      "vendor-statement"
    ]
  },
  "falsifiers": [
    {
      "condition": "The stored records cannot be resolved to a person, and the export shows totals per team only.",
      "checkable": "manual",
      "if_true": "drop"
    },
    {
      "condition": "The activity value is produced by the worker's own action, such as time they book themselves.",
      "checkable": "manual",
      "if_true": "drop"
    },
    {
      "condition": "The worker sees the same rows at the same interval and can correct them.",
      "checkable": "manual",
      "if_true": "weaken"
    },
    {
      "condition": "The measurement runs for a bounded investigation with a stated ground and an end date.",
      "checkable": "manual",
      "if_true": "weaken",
      "note": "A targeted investigation is a different processing from permanent measurement of everyone, and it is written down somewhere."
    }
  ],
  "legal": {
    "provisions": [
      "eu-gdpr-5-1-c",
      "eu-gdpr-88",
      "nl-wor-27",
      "eu-gdpr-22"
    ],
    "rebuttals": [
      {
        "objection": "The employees agreed to it.",
        "answer": "In a relationship of authority consent is rarely free, because refusing costs something. That is why the discussion runs over necessity and over the works council rather than over a signature."
      },
      {
        "objection": "We only look at team totals.",
        "answer": "Then the storage should be team totals. A per-person row that exists can be looked at, and will be as soon as there is a reason to look."
      },
      {
        "objection": "It is our equipment.",
        "answer": "Owning the device settles who may install software on it, not what may be recorded about the person using it."
      },
      {
        "objection": "The system does not decide anything, a manager does.",
        "answer": "Where the manager sees the score and not the work, the system did the selecting. What has to be shown is what the manager had in front of them."
      }
    ]
  },
  "related": [
    "DPE-2026-0022",
    "DPE-2026-0037",
    "DPE-2026-0038"
  ],
  "seen_in_the_wild": {
    "confirmed": false,
    "note": "Observed in practice by the authors but not yet backed by a published reference. Set to false until a citation exists: a claim without a source is exactly what this catalogue holds others to."
  },
  "in_practice": {
    "dpia": "Verify what the product stores per person per interval, rather than what the dashboard shows the manager.",
    "procurement": "The product stores no per-person activity row at an interval shorter than the reporting the purpose requires, and the worker can see their own rows.",
    "complaint": "The export of one worker's rows for one day, the interval, and the works council decision if there is one.",
    "audit_question": "Show me one day of one employee, in the form the system stores it.",
    "audit_question_nl": "Laat een dag van een medewerker zien, zoals het systeem het opslaat.",
    "complaint_nl": "De uitdraai van een dag van een medewerker met het tijdvak per regel, en het instemmingsbesluit van de ondernemingsraad als dat er is.",
    "objection_nl": "De medewerkers hebben ermee ingestemd.",
    "answer_nl": "In een gezagsverhouding is toestemming zelden vrij. Het gesprek gaat over noodzaak en over de ondernemingsraad, niet over een handtekening."
  },
  "schema_version": "2.0",
  "status": "active",
  "credit": [
    {
      "name": "Mick Beer",
      "role": "proposed",
      "date": "2026-07-26"
    }
  ],
  "does_not_establish": [
    "harm; the catalogue standardises a finding so it can be referred to, it does not weigh it",
    "severity; there is no score here, by design. Weighing belongs to whoever applies the entry to a concrete case",
    "unlawfulness; that is for a supervisory authority or a court",
    "intent; a fault is usually a build decision, not a plan",
    "absence: not finding it in one capture is not evidence that it is not there"
  ],
  "reproduction": {
    "methods": [
      {
        "tier": "manual",
        "path": "METHOD.md",
        "expect": "no dedicated reproduction exists yet; follow the general method and the indicator above"
      }
    ]
  },
  "changes": [
    {
      "at": "2026-07-26T00:00:00Z",
      "actor": "registry",
      "entries": [
        "Entry created.",
        "Name assigned.",
        "Detection method and falsifiers defined.",
        "Legal provisions linked."
      ]
    }
  ]
}