Is it? Platforms like Upwork advertise this software to businesses wanting to hire freelancers as a major advantage of choosing to go through them, and I hear that trucking companies in the US regularly install cameras within their trucks to watch the drivers at all times.
Various reasons. One is to check that the driver is not looking at his phone or watching videos while driving (because they have so much downtime, truckers often have a tablet or laptop to watch movies on), i.e. the same reason there are cameras watching the drivers of trains. Truckers occasionally try to bring their spouses along, which is against the company’s rules, or they make use of prostitutes on the road, and a camera lets the company ensure that no one is ever inside their truck but the driver.
As far as I know our company does not have such surveillance software. But we all use Microsoft Teams, which changes the color of your icon from green to yellow if you leave your computer for a minute (or stop using keyboard and mouse). So I guess the only difference is whether someone looks at the icons.
Just download a jiggler. Most of the icon color changing systems are just looking for some kind of user event. Turn it on when you step away and no one is the wiser. Didn’t answer a DM? You were in deep focus mode and didn’t see it, etc.
I noticed that when running MS teams in a flatpak on wayland, it no longer has access to the mouse and keyboard input so it just shows me as online always.
