Reversing the Gaze
How to Study Workplace Apps and Reclaim Workers' Rights
The Handbook and Workshop Guide
Our new Handbook provides a practical methodology for investigating workplace apps together with workers. We use network forensics to examine the data flowing between workplace apps and company servers. This allows us to investigate:
- What apps collect — including data gathered in the background
- Where data goes — including connections to third-party services
- How apps manage workers — including traces of ranking, scoring, task allocation and automated decision-making
The Handbook also shows how technical findings can become evidence for action — including complaints to data protection authorities, strategic litigation, collective bargaining and public campaigning.
The accompanying Workshop Guide shows how to put the methodology into practice — from setting up the technical investigation and collecting data, to analysing findings and deciding what to do with them.
About Reversing.Works
Reversing.Works brings workers, unions, technologists and researchers together to investigate the digital systems shaping work. Workplace apps increasingly track workers, collect data, allocate tasks, measure performance and make decisions that affect pay and working conditions. Our aim is to make digital investigation accessible and reproducible, so workers’ organisations, unions, technologists and researchers can build on an established methodology rather than starting from scratch.
Join Our Community Call
18:00–20:00 Online
Join us for the launch of the Handbook and Workshop Guide. We will:
- Introduce the two guides and the methodology
- Share what we learned from testing it with workers
- Discuss how digital investigations can support organising and advocacy
- Connect people interested in investigating workplace technology
Register Now
$ open https://luma.com/m886cxlq