Possibly worse than the NSA: your boss

Many companies have the technology, resources, and incentive to keep close tabs on their employees. Are they getting too deep into our work affairs to border on spying?

Dennis Gray suspected that workers in his pest-control company were spending too much time on personal issues during the workday. So the general manager of Accurid Pest Solutions in southern Virginia quietly installed a piece of GPS tracking software on the company-issued smartphones of five of its 18 drivers.

The software allowed Mr. Gray to log onto his computer to see a map displaying the location and movement of his staff. One employee, he discovered, was visiting the same address a few times a week for a few hours during the workday. At that point, Mr. Gray told the driver he was being tracked.