PSU Bank introduce new app for their Employees, is this app to track staff?

Another problem surrounds Punjab National Bank, one of India's biggest public sector banks. A new debate has emerged following the conclusion of the new transfer policy problem. 

Punjab National Bank has unveiled two new features for its staff: the PNB Aagman app for tracking attendance and a feedback system based on QR codes. The PNB Aagman app will be discussed in this post. 

This new software was released by PNB to track employees' locations and record their attendance. This implies that an employee can only record their attendance if they are present at their workplace. The app user will need to provide the app with their location in order to accomplish this. There are versions of the mobile app for iOS and Android.

PNB employees can download the app and mark attendance via this app. Everything seems to be super cool and hi-tech but the employees are not happy with it. Employees and Bank Associations have taken to social media to express their anger and grief regarding the app.

Users are protesting that the software infringes their privacy, as you can see from the tweets above. We Bankers Association claims that Punjab National Bank already uses a desktop biometric attendance marking system, so why is the bank using an app for attendance? The bank has been accused by the Association of live-tracking its workers. Workers are concerned that the software could be used to spy on them. 

The Bank Officers' Association has expressed grave worries regarding two new PNB-introduced systems: the customer feedback technique based on QR codes and the AAGMAN App for recording attendance. According to the group, these new methods cause needless stress at work and invade officers' privacy.

The app is location-based, which means it tracks where the officer is. It also seeks access to officers’ personal data, such as their contact list, phone calls, and other private information. The association pointed out that biometric attendance is already in place in the bank, which serves the same purpose. Therefore, introducing another system for attendance seems unnecessary and looks like an attempt to control the private lives of officers.

Users complain various issues with the app

1. The mobile app is not available on the Google Play Store, which is the official app store for Android. When an app is uploaded on the Google Play Store, Google checks the app and the app goes live only if it as per Google’s policies. In this case, the PNB Aagman app is not available on the Google Play Store means there might be some issue with the app.

2. The app does not seem to be working properly. When users downloaded the app for testing, the app kept on showing the message – Loading, and finally, the app crashed. This means the app has some developmental issues.

3. The app asks for various permissions, such as permissions to access phone calls, which completely violates the privacy of users. Such permissions are not needed for an attendance app. These permissions are needed to manage phone calls and contacts. Recently, Google and the Government of India have asked Citizens not to provide any permission that is irrelevant to the working of any app. This means that a camera app should not ask for phone permission, a calendar app should not ask for camera permission, and so on. So in this case, an attendance app should not ask for phone call permissions. The app is based on marking biometric via location tracking and so it should ask for location permissions only.

4. Users say that the bank has already implemented biometric attendance in desktops and the system is working flawlessly. When one system of attendance marking is working properly then why bank is spending money on mobile apps? Instead, this money should be utilised in the betterment of the existing system. The development and maintenance of mobile apps require a lot of funds and these could have been used to make the existing biometric system better.

Meanwhile, PNB Management is working hard to revamp the bank and improve customer service. What happens next – let’s see – whether the app will be implemented or not. What are your thoughts? Tell us in the comment section below.

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After being asked to pay his loan payment, a loan account holder stormed into a bank branch, misbehaved, and attempted to take the employees hostage. 

The event happened inside the Bank of India in Varanasi's Badi Bazar, and Shiv Pratap Singh Chandel, the accused, has been charged at the Chetganj police station. Branch manager Jitendra Kumar Dubey claims that Shiv Pratap Singh Chandel was contacted by bank employees to inform him of his overdue loan payment. 

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Following the untimely death of a local man named Inderjeet Singh, who had been employed by Canara Bank's Fazilka branch for the last seven to eight years, a bank manager has been charged with aiding and abetting suicide.

When Seema Rani, Inderjeet's wife and a Gandhi Nagar resident, filed a complaint with the Fazilka City Police, the incident became public knowledge. She claims that after being repeatedly humiliated by the bank manager, her husband committed himself on January 4.

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The United Federation of Bank Unions, the umbrella organisation of nine bank unions, met here and congratulated the staff for observing the two-day strike, general secretary of the federation CH Venkatachalam said. 

"It has been decided to further continue the struggle with more strikes. Having regard to the need for an amicable solution, it was decided to meet the higher authorities in the government and the banks", he told PTI.

"However, if no solution is forthcoming in these meetings, the United Forum of Bank Unions will proceed and announce more agitations", he said. Meanwhile, a report from Tirupathi quoted senior vice-president of the National Confederation of Bank Employees, VVSR Sarma as saying that the bank staff would intensify the stir in a phased manner in July and August to press for their demands.

"Prior to intensifying our agitation, United Forum of Bank Unions decided to submit a memorandum on the wage hike issue and other banking developmental issues to finance minister Arun Jaitley by this month-end," he said.

Source- Times of India

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