This Security Camera Is Designed to Catch Coworkers Who Steal Your Food

The shared space of the office kitchen is a petri dish of human interaction.

Aside from having a roommate, it's probably the most intimate glimpse that you can get into someone else's daily eating habits. Inevitably, after a while, the dark side emerges.

Can there really only half of my chocolate almond soy milk left? Could Mark have taken some? Fucking Mark. "It was definitely Mark," you mutter to yourself, loud enough for coworkers to stare at you, confused and a little concerned.

But your suspicions would not be entirely unfounded. Mark-related incidents aside, one third of office workers have their lunches stolen, according to a recent survey undertaken by security firm ADT. The study looked at 2,000 UK office workers and found that 29 percent of them had had their lunch stolen and a staggering 31 percent reported that their favorite mug had been stolen.

Obviously, ADT had something in mind when they commissioned this research, and the culmination of this investigation will make your passive-aggressive mutterings seem benign.

As if it wasn't enough to have your time monitored in most workplaces, the Orwellian integration of technology into our lives means that office fridge security cameras might be shining light on one of the last nooks of privacy.

Like many surveillance privacy breaches we read about, the fridge cams exist under the guise of "security." According to The Guardian, who tested the product, the alarm prototype "relies on a mobile signal to send images, and that cut out as soon as the fridge door was closed," whenever a potential thief comes within 50 centimeters of the device, "it takes a high-definition picture and sends it the owner an email warning them that their property is at risk." Nice.

Is it really worth knowing for sure who stole your precious chocolate milk? Would you want to work in an office where—at the risk of sounding like Kellyanne Conway—even the kitchen appliances are under surveillance?

Maybe you should just worry about work instead and rise above the petty theft of your coworkers. Fucking Mark.