Company uses webcams to connect, monitor employees working from home

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. - With more people working from home, utilizing Zoom, Facetime or Skype to hold business meetings, one online communications company is helping connect workers and benefiting from it.

The London-based company is called Sneek. It uses webcams to connect employees on one screen.

However, it’s been highly criticized because it can snap pictures of employees in 1 to 5-minute increments throughout the day. Putting the issue of privacy at the forefront.

“People seem to think that we’re this crazy spyware corporations are putting in their computers to watch their staff and it’s the complete opposite. Our clients are small agencies trying to keep in touch with each other,” Del Currie, the Co-Founder of Sneek said.

It works like this, company employees would log into Sneek and have their video chat open.

You would take a picture at the beginning of the day. It also takes pictures throughout the day.  

The person in charge can decide if the picture is taken every minute up to every 5 minutes. There is also a manual button to not have that capability.

If you click on someone’s picture, it will then call that coworker unless they are on silent.

Currie said they created this to use for their own team, realizing how needed it was, they branched out for client use.

“We’re a tight-knit team so Sneeks perfect for us but if your employees have any kind of concern for privacy, then don’t use it,” he said. “But if you’re a tight-knit team and you want a handy tool for quick calls, discussions projects within a group, then Sneeks for you.”

According to Currie, they have users in Niles, Indianapolis, and St. John in Lake County, but other users are all over the world.