Imagine going to work, perhaps any workplace, such as a fast food chain, and realizing that your  heart rate, body temperature, movements, facial expressions and blood pressure was being monitored in order to assess your productivity.

This Big Brother-style software is just around the corner and may be brought to you by no other than Micorsoft.

The story was uncovered today by The Times of London.

Microsoft has submitted a patent application in the US for a “unique monitoring system” that could link workers to their computers.

According to the Times, wireless sensors could read “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain singals, respiration rate, body tempeature, facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure,” the application states.

They say in their application that the system could also “automatically detect frustration or stress in the user” and “offer and provide assistance accordingly.”

Employers that employ such an ill-advised system will find their business in an abyss, and rightfully so.

Such monitoring does nothing to encourage the entrepreneur, a vital aspect of an employees’ contribution to small or big business.

Can you imagine if the system picked up an increase in heart rate or facial expressions suggestive of stress or frustration, it would tell management that the employee needed help.

There is no question that this new technology raises very serious privacy issues and before it is ever introduced it should cause the Congress to introduce legislation to see that such technology is illegal in the workplace.