Employees at Google LLC have accused the company of developing an internal surveillance tool to spy on its own employees, something Google “categorically” denies.

The news was first reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday after it obtained a memo that outlined how top Google executives had ordered that a Chrome browser extension be developed with the express intention to monitor the activity of employees.

The memo states that “this is an attempt of leadership to immediately learn about any workers organization attempts.”

Prior to the extension being approved, it was scrutinized by Google’s own privacy team. After that, one member of the team wrote that it raises “a number of concerns with respect to the culture at Google.” It was still approved, however. Another member of the team went further, calling the extension “creepy” and jokingly saying it might better be named “not-a-trojan-horse_dot_exe.”

This all comes after internal discord last year that led to a global walkout. Since then, some employees have accused the company of unfair treatment, saying Google seems to take a zero-tolerance stance on mutiny within the company. Google has also denied that.

The tool in question relates to the calendar app, with the employees saying it tracks anyone who creates an invite and sends it to more 100 people. Those employees accuse Google of making this tool to watch out for any upcoming protests.

“These claims about the operation and purpose of this extension are categorically false,” said a spokesperson for Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. “This is a pop-up reminder that asks people to be mindful before auto-adding a meeting to the calendars of large numbers of employees.”

According to Bloomberg, a number of employees at Google aren’t buying that. It’s reported that message boards at the company right now are full of people mocking Google for its somewhat weak attempt to spy on employees.

At the moment only a small number of employees have the extension of their machines, although it’s expected it will roll out to more staff at the end of this month.

Photo: John Marino/Flickr