Associated Incidents
Along with Zhihu's layoffs, a system that claims to be able to monitor employee turnover tendencies and sabotage has aroused public attention and brought the listed company Sangfor and its partners to the forefront.
A few days ago, under the topic of #zhihu being exposed to large layoffs #, some netizens revealed that some companies have installed behavioral perception systems, which can analyze and rate employees' turnover intentions. The evaluation terms include "high-risk "Suspected", "suspicious", etc., the specific monitoring content covers the number of times employees visit recruitment websites, job applications on the site, search keywords, and the number of resumes, etc. Even the resumes delivered by employees on the recruitment website can be previewed and downloaded.
It is understood that the system was developed by Sangfor Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Sangfor). Sangfor is a product and service provider focusing on enterprise-level network security, cloud computing and IT infrastructure, basic network and Internet of Things. It has three major business brands: Sangfor Smart Security, Sangfor Cloud and Sangfor New IT. The company's official website shows that at present, more than 100,000 enterprise users are using Sangfor's products.
However, as of press time, Sangfor has deleted the product introduction page. Along with it, there are also successful cases of cooperation between the monitoring system and major enterprises.
So, what kind of "magic system" is this? Is it real to monitor employees' online behavior?
The relevant system has patents, and the minimum monitoring is 40,000 yuan for 3 years
According to public information, the online transmission system is called "Behavior Awareness System BA", which is a massive online log based on Internet behavior management. , which helps organizations gain insight into behavioral risks and simplify operation and maintenance management.
It is understood that in addition to the log center, bandwidth analysis, non-shutdown detection and analysis, and leak traceability analysis functions, the system also has the functions of turnover intention analysis, office network situation analysis and work efficiency.
Among them, in terms of turnover intention analysis, Sangfor said that by analyzing the frequency and frequency of employees visiting job search websites, as well as the actions of submitting resumes on job search websites, it can display the number of turnover intentions, names and positions for enterprise managers, and even provide information about turnover intentions. Five employees to help companies "intervene in advance to solve the risk of leaks and job vacancies caused by employee resignation."
In terms of work efficiency, the system can help enterprise managers to check the work situation of employees in detail. Specifically, managers can view employees' online records through the background, and intuitively understand what different employees did during what time period from the data, such as chatting, watching videos, shopping, and stock trading.
Just when netizens questioned the system for allegedly infringing on personal privacy, the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily reported that a salesperson in Sangfor said, "This is very legal, and many companies are using it."
According to the Red Star Capital Bureau, generally speaking, it is necessary to first deploy an online behavior management system, conduct an intranet audit, and then import the relevant data to the behavior perception system for analysis. And a salesperson in Sangfor said that if you just want to analyze the employee's resignation risk, you can only use the online behavior management system. If you use the behavior perception system, you can predict more risks, such as employees sending and uploading company secrets documents, etc.
The salesperson revealed that, assuming a company's bandwidth is 100M and the number of terminals to be monitored is 200 , the cost for three years is only 40,000 yuan if only the online behavior management system is used. If the two systems are used together, the cost will rise to hundreds of thousands of yuan. When better network broadband and more terminals are equipped, the cost can even reach hundreds of thousands of yuan.
What gave Sangfor the confidence to "just sell" the system was that the company applied for a patent for the "behavior perception system" in March 2018, and it passed the review and took effect in September of the same year.
The scope is limited to "company intranet", and the market share is the first for 12 consecutive years
However, as public opinion fermented, firstly, Zhihu in the center of the storm denied installing and using the so-called behavioral perception system, and said that similar software tools would not be used in the future; then Sina, one of the convincing customers, also publicly stated that the employee monitoring system is completely unreliable. I don't know, and I have never purchased related services; even the behavior perception system BA on Sangfor's official website can't be retrieved, and the successful cases of the system's cooperation with China Everbright Bank Shenzhen Branch, Sina and East China Normal University listed earlier are also unavailable.
In this regard, according to the daily economic news report, Jiang Wenguang, secretary of the board of directors of Sangfor, said that he did not pay attention to this matter (could not be retrieved), but the behavior perception system BA was not launched recently. Work efficiency analysis and turnover intention analysis are all functions of the product. , the company does not monitor whose data, it is the customer's own behavior.
Jiang Wenguang emphasized that the recently hotly discussed turnover analysis is a very small function in Sangfor's products, and the focus of the behavioral awareness system is to analyze leaks and traces to help government and enterprise users manage some internal threats. Moreover, this system only monitors office computers and the company's internal network, and does not monitor employee behavior on the Internet.
In Jiang Wenguang's view, it is more reasonable for employees to use the company's computer and network to submit resumes or violate regulations (watching videos, chatting, etc.), and it is more reasonable for the company to manage. "It can be avoided if employees use their own computers or the Internet at home."
According to public information, Sangfor was established in December 2000. Its business is mainly divided into three major segments, namely enterprise-level network security, cloud computing, IT infrastructure and the Internet of Things. The aforementioned behavior management system products are classified as the network security business field. The financial report shows that in 2020, Sangfor's network security business will bring about 3.349 billion yuan in revenue, accounting for 61.35%.
It is worth mentioning that in the 2021 semi-annual report, Sangfor once stated that its network-wide behavior management products have continued to maintain the first domestic market share in the security content management category for 12 consecutive years from 2009 to 2020, and the number one in 2021. The domestic market share ranked first in the first quarter.
On January 25, Sangfor released its 2021 annual performance forecast, with an estimated revenue of approximately RMB 6.707 billion to RMB 6.816 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.87%-24.87%; however, its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies fell by 61.82%-70.22% year-on-year. %, about 241 million yuan to 309 million yuan.
Regarding the sharp drop in net profit, Sangfor said, firstly, the growth rate of operating income was slow; secondly, due to the further increase in investment, various expenses were still growing rapidly; thirdly, because the overall gross profit margin declined.
On February 14, Sangfor's share price hit an intraday minimum of 142.66 yuan, a new low in the past year. As of the close, it reported 144.5 yuan per share, a drop of more than 55% compared to the peak price of 321.73 yuan per share in the past year. 60.1 billion yuan. As of the press release on the 15th, the stock price has rebounded to 145.65 yuan, and the latest market value is 60.55 billion.
"Monitoring the tendency of employees to switch jobs" caused controversy, Sangfor urgently removed the product from the shelves, and the lawyer said that the employee was not informed of the suspected violation of the law
In fact, in addition to Sangfor, many domestic security software companies have developed similar behavior perception systems. Qi Anxin is on the list and has launched a risk perception program for online behavior, saying that the program can realize complete online behavior perception, including work Efficiency, resignation analysis, anti-confidential risk analysis, etc., to provide managers with a complete behavioral compliance assessment report.
According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, citing a number of corporate employees, many large companies will install similar traffic analysis and monitoring tools on their company's computers, so that they can learn about employees' Internet traffic and software usage. For example, when employees are found to be using pirated software, they will be asked to delete them. And some companies even conduct company-wide notifications of employees' visits to non-work websites.
So, are such companies' behavior of monitoring employees' online behavior suspected of violating laws and regulations such as the Personal Information Protection Law?
He emphasized that companies should first inform employees of traffic monitoring, and then obtain employee consent. If the enterprise fails to do so, it will constitute illegal processing of personal information and suspected violation of employees' personal privacy rights.
You Yunting said frankly that in fact, as early as 2007, he had been in contact with business consulting in this area, and it was proposed by a software developer similar to Sangfor. "My suggestion is that employees can set their own Internet access behaviors, whether to use the Internet for business or to do personal affairs online." He said that if they do private affairs, the company does not monitor the corresponding traffic. The advantage of this approach is that if employees will It is obviously unreasonable to set the long office hours for personal affairs, and you will feel embarrassed; if the employees themselves set up the Internet access for business, the enterprise can monitor the corresponding traffic.
"At the same time, if an enterprise uses compulsory authorization as a condition for entry, it will infringe on employees' personal information rights and privacy rights ." You Yunting said that employees can complain to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Internet Information Office, and the labor law enforcement department, or go directly to labor arbitration. The commission or the court claims that the compulsory authorization of the enterprise is illegal.