Also do some really weird things that are innocuous so the HR lady looks at you weird from now on.

Absolutely. Everyone could use that reminder

Yea, this regular "surprise" that work computers are... IDK... owned by work and are configured as the owner requires... is so strange to me.

I can't imagine why

RPM in this context means what?

We have that capability but dont really have the time or need for it. having said that, it only takes one rouge employee to mess it up for everyone else.

I also work in cybersecurity. Second everything this person said.

This thread is a good reminder, because at many organizations HR / management can and will look at your browser history (and computer activity in general) as a method of monitoring performance and staying in control.

But at my organization, we have never once looked at anyone's browser history (and I know that HR hasn't because they would have to go through us). We certainly could if we were asked to and we would if there was an incident (what we would care about is sensitive / confidential information getting leaked or suspicious activity on the network using a specific person's credentials, suggesting those credentials may be compromised). But in almost 2 years (we're a startup in the aerospace electronics sector) we have never once had cause to do that and we have a philosophy that happy relaxed employees who feel trusted by their employer are the kinds of employees that we want, so we wouldn't intrude that way without cause ever.

Same for our company, and all companies whose security folks I've had a chat with. We don't give a fuck what you do on your computer. Almost all security folks are into privacy themselves, additionally to simply not having the time to look at people's browser history or traffic or whatever.

Yes, we have the option to collect data. No, we don't look at it unless there is a very good reason to do so. And we protect that data, HR or whoever can't just have it if they feel like taking a look. There is a process to protect the data, because that means protecting the company.

Your security team is not the enemy.

I agree with you completely

They don't need the computer to see everywhere you've gone. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for clearing their history, but lots of people who have had problems visiting questionable sites.

That's not how it works in civilized countries that provide worker's rights by law

I have been hinting to my manager for 6-9 months that he needs to move part of my workload elsewhere so that I can focus and actually achieve something. To think, all it took was for me to tell him straight that I was unhappy and unfulfilled to the point that I was considering resigning. Suddenly he's all apologies and let's make changes because you're kind of vital and we don't want to lose you.

Usually the websites and apps you use, but not what specific page you visit and it's content.

If you for example visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States they could see that you visited https://en.wikipedia.org/ but nothing more.

This is assuming that the website is encrypted (it starts with https://, not http://), which nowadays luckily most websites are. Otherwise they can see the specific page, it's content and most likely also all information you input on that page.

That might not be enough. I could monitor that on all the devices I manage, if I need to. There are tools to dump browsing info as it's being committed, or it's easy to pipe all the traffic from your machine through a VPN to a firewall I manage with a trusted cert injection into your device and inspect the traffic in transit. If you don't want your employer to see what your up to, don't use their infrastructure.