You can work, but you can't hide. (Up Front: news, trends & analysis).

You may not have heard of presence awareness technology yet, but it soon could change the way you work.

Imagine if your computer, cellular phone, and other communication devices contained technology that allowed them to determine whether your device was on and whether you were using it, and to communicate such information to other devices and networks?

Presence awareness technology enables equipment on a network to be detected automatically by other devices. It is not science fiction, and in the very near future it soon might be ubiquitous in communication equipment everywhere. Telecommunications giant Motorola soon will roll out a presence-based system that will allow a caller to know whether another person's cellular phone is on and whether it is being used. Nokia and Ericsson also are developing the technology for use in wireless and landline phones. Other major companies are considering presence technology for use with handheld computers, wireless Web pads, vehicle communications systems, and even Web-enabled exercise machines.

Experts say some systems will even use satellite tracking systems such as the U.S. Department of Defense's Global Positioning System to detect an individual's location while he or she is logged on to a computer or cellular phone.

There are many good uses for such technology. For example, presence-enabled wireless handheld computers and phones could alert an individual when a friend is a mile away. Such technology could keep track of cellular phone-toting teens for parents. For businesses, a phone-based system could automatically connect teleconference participants at the instant every one is available.

But will this technology, which many consider too invasive, fly in corporate America? If a recent Bell Labs project recently reported by the New York Times is any indication, probably not. In the "Rear View Mirror" project, scientist James Herbsleb and colleagues studied a group of employees in American and European offices who used a Bell Labs instant messaging system for more than a year.

Herbsleb says German employees complained that the system worked like a surveillance tool, and they did not like the idea that supervisors could detect and monitor their time and actions while they were using their computers.

Because of privacy issues, Bell Labs researchers altered the software to give users complete control. Then the program's default options were set to make users appear to be offline. If employees wanted co-workers to know they were logged in, they had to turn on the feature that displayed their availability.

But Herbsleb says that solution did not work well. The software was intended to avoid annoyances like phone tag, but it is useless if employees have to announce their availability to colleagues. That misses the point of presence technology--to sense what is going on without any action by a user.

Before this technology can take off, experts say software developers will have to design presence awareness systems to satisfy those who want privacy and those who do not mind if their supervisor's PC knows where they are and what they're doing. On second thought, why would anyone want that?