Dominic Wellington responded thoughtfully to speculation, including my own that a device management key for suppressing screen recording alerts in MacOS Sequoia was added in part because of employee monitoring software:

[…] I know perfectly well that these sorts of tools exist and are deployed by companies, but I suspect they are more prevalent in the sorts of lower-paid jobs that don’t rate fancy expensive Macs. This is why I don’t think employee surveillance (or test proctoring, which is Nick Heer’s other example) can be sufficient explanation for Apple walking back the frequency of this notification. Meanwhile, Zoom et al are near-universal on corporate Macs, and are going to be correspondingly closer to top of mind for administrators of Mac fleets.

This is a fair and considered response, and I think Wellington is right. Even though screen recording capabilities are widespread in employee surveillance products, I do not know that they are very popular. I oversold the likelihood of this being a reflection of that software.

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Apple in the release notes for MacOS 15.1 beta:

Applications using our deprecated content capture technologies now have enhanced user awareness policies. Users will see fewer dialogs if they regularly use apps in which they have already acknowledged and accepted the risks.

John Gruber:

Why in the world didn’t Apple take regular use of a screen-recording app into account all along?

Benjamin Brooks:

I think this is the question you ask when you have not used a Corporate Mac in the last 4-5 years. For those who are, you know that companies install applications which take screenshots and screen recordings of certain or all activities being done on the Mac. You know, for security.

When users began noticing the screen recording permissions prompt over the summer, I remember lots of people speculating Apple added it because of possible spyware or domestic violence behaviour. That is a plausible explanation.

But Brooks’ keen observation is something I, in hindsight, should have also considered, and I am kicking myself for forgetting about the possibility. I now remember linking to things like employee surveillance software and online test proctoring — applications which monitor users’ screens effectively by force, something one will agree to unless they want to change jobs or not complete an exam. I believe this is supported by — and casts a new light upon — a device management key available to system administrators for suppressing those permissions prompts.

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Jason Snell, Six Colors:

Apple’s recent feature changes suggest a value system that’s wildly out of balance, preferring to warn (and control) users no matter how damaging it is to the overall user experience. Maybe the people in charge should be forced to sit down and watch that Apple ad that mocks Windows Vista. Vista’s security prompts existed for good reasons — but they were a user disaster. The Apple of that era knew it. I’d guess a lot of people inside today’s Apple know it, too — but they clearly are unable to win the arguments when it matters.

The first evidence of this relentless slog of permissions prompts occurred on iOS. Want to allow this app to use the camera? Tap allow. See your location? Tap allow. Access your contacts? Tap allow. Send you notifications? Tap allow. On and on it goes, sweeping up the Mac in this relentless offloading of responsibility onto users.

On some level, I get it. Our devices are all synced with one another, passing our identities and secret information between them constantly. We install new applications without thinking too much about what they could be doing in the background. We switch on automatic updates with similar indifference. (If you are somebody who does not do these things, please do not write. I know you are there; I respect you; you are one of few.)

But relentless user confirmation is not a good answer for privacy, security, or competition. It merely kicks the can down the road, and suggests users cannot be trusted, yet must bear all the responsibility for their choices.

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Apple, in a Developer News bulletin:

In macOS Sequoia, users will no longer be able to Control-click to override Gatekeeper when opening software that isn’t signed correctly or notarized. They’ll need to visit System Settings > Privacy & Security to review security information for software before allowing it to run.

This is one of those little things which will go unnoticed by most users, but will become a thorn in the side of anyone who relies on it. These are likely developers and other people who are more technologically literate placed in the position of increasingly fighting with the tools they use to get things done. It may be a small thing, but small things add up.

Update: The weekly permission prompts for screen and audio recording, on the other hand, might be noticed by a lot more people.

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