One of the "Big Four" accounting firms is to start tracking the locations of its UK employees, to keep a closer eye on hybrid working practices.

In a memo to its 26,000 UK employees, PwC said it will use geo-location technology to help formalise its "approach to working together in person". This is the "latest in a series of increasingly sinister salvos" as electronic surveillance becomes "increasingly widespread" in the workplace, employment studies academic Professor Kevin Murphy wrote for RTE.

What are companies doing?
The rise in remote work since the pandemic has been accompanied by a "surge in workplace monitoring", said People Management. By next year, 70% of large employers are expected to be monitoring their employees. Monitoring office attendance is part of the motivation in some instances, but most companies implementing surveillance are doing so to "protect themselves from security risks".

Among the electronic tracking tools available are programs that allow bosses to see every keystroke typed on a worker's computer, and built-in video cameras that can record employees' behaviour and movements. Major employers in the US, including Starbucks, Walmart and AstraZeneca, have also used AI to "monitor and analyse messages sent between employees", said HR Grapevine.

Is it legal?
Amazon was fined €32 million (£27 million) in France in January for "excessive" surveillance of its workers, including measures found to be illegal by the country's data watchdog. Amazon insisted that the court's findings were "factually incorrect".

In the UK, the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees are defined within the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Data Protection Act 2018. Under the legislation, workplace surveillance measures must be proportionate and respectful of an individual's privacy. There are also strict guidelines on the processing and handling of personal data.

What's the reaction?
"People aren't robots," said Helen Coffey in The Independent. Software that tracks when workers are at their desks is "like something out of a dystopian novel".

There are many reasons to be "concerned" about this trend, said Murphy. Not least is that surveillance creates the "very real possibility of unwarranted invasions of privacy" and can be a "significant source of stress for employees" and a "threat to their well-being and mental health".

Spotify has more than 626 million users worldwide, but some of them might be unknowingly jamming out to music by "fake" artists. The world's top music streaming platform has reportedly become inundated with unlicensed covers of songs, many generated by artificial intelligence.

'Very ChatGPT-sounding bios'
Covers of popular songs are being added to public playlists, "farming millions of streams from unsuspecting listeners", said Slate. The artists fit a "certain pattern, with monthly listeners in the hundreds of thousands, zero social media footprint, and some very ChatGPT-sounding bios". A "group of vigilante Redditors" initially spotted the pattern among bands covering country songs, but the issue affects other genres too.

While it cannot be confirmed that all of these songs are the result of AI, many "appear to be similar versions of the same piece of poorly produced music, each differentiated by random changes in pitch", said gaming-and-tech site Kotaku. Often songs from no-name artists are very similar to one another, "starting the same way and using the same melodic motifs". And tracks feature "similarly styled, bizarre, stock images for the album art".

'Middle finger to real artists'
The problem "shines a light on the murky argument over what to do with this brand of chicanery in the first place", said Slate. Spotify says it doesn't have a policy against artists creating songs using AI tools, as long as they are not falsely impersonating a real band, so stopping the trend presents a challenge.

The tactic is "highly unethical", said tech site Kotaku, as it syphons off streams, and therefore income, for the legitimate bands – a "massive middle finger to the artists who actually pour their soul into their music". What is "even more concerning is how this could be just the beginning". As AI tech improves, "it's only going to get harder to tell what's real and what's not".

"Bitter, sweet, dry and refreshing all at once", a classic negroni is quite simply a "perfect cocktail", said Nate Erickson in Esquire. 

Today marks the beginning of Negroni Week, an annual celebration of the "carmine-coloured" tipple, and while the negroni is a staple of summer drinks menus, there's "never really a bad time to whip one up". Equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, finished with a twist of orange peel, it "couldn't be easier to make". 

The negroni dates back more than a century, to when Count Camillo Negroni walked into a cafe in Florence and "pleaded for something stronger" than an Americano – a heady mix of Campari, sweet vermouth and soda water favoured by American tourists visiting Italy during Prohibition. The story goes that the bartender swapped the soda for gin, added an orange garnish and "the negroni was born". 

Since then, there have been countless twists on the classic drink. Switching gin for mezcal, for example, adds "pleasant smokiness" to the cocktail, while replacing it with whiskey creates rich, warming notes", said Justin Sullivan in delish.

"Play around" with rye, bourbon, rum and just about any spirit you can think of to make your own "negroni riff", Dante's head bartender Stacey Swenson told Food & Wine. "Just remember the drink's three components: bitter, sweet, and strong." 

If you like gin, remember it needs to be "bold" to compete with the strong flavour of Campari. And always twist the orange peel over the glass in order to release the oils and create "the most aromatic drinking experience".

What doesn't kill Trump makes him stronger
Freddy Gray in The Spectator
This second attempt on Donald Trump's life could "prove to be a major moment in the presidential campaign", writes Freddy Gray. Proof that some people "still want Trump dead" is likely to "boost his appeal among the people who don't". The former president is an "extraordinary" political candidate who "thrives" on enmity. "Whatever doesn't kill him makes him stronger", and "sure enough", the betting markets have quickly "improved in Trump's favour".

If Lib Dems are smart, they'll watch and wait
Matthew Parris in The Times
To put it "bluntly", writes Matthew Parris, the Lib Dems are "yet to work out who they are and what they're for" – and if their leaders are "shrewd", they'll keep it that way. It's "entirely possible" that the Conservatives "will go mad again" and that the Labour government will "sink irretrievably into voter contempt". For Lib Dems, the best bet for now is to "make plenty of noise, but say little".

Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it's troubling that we don't know…
Alan Rusbridger on The Independent
As The Jewish Chronicle is rocked by a scandal over its publication of allegedly fabricated articles on Gaza, the funding of the paper remains "a closely guarded secret", writes Alan Rusbridger. A "mysterious consortium swooped in to rescue the title from threatened liquidation" but is there any "precedent" for such anonymity around the funding of a major newspaper? "I can't think of one" and it's "odd that a venerable" publication "should choose to avoid the light".