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Residences for elderly dependent persons are making increasing use of new technologies that help professionals to care for residents. This article shows how these tools have come to be used in management control, through the production of charts on the dependency level of residents and through the IT monitoring of files. On the basis of a qualitative survey of eight institutions in the Pays de la Loire department in France and with some 50 staff members, we demonstrate that the use of these technologies is contributing to the streamlining of the activity against a backdrop of public expenditure control. Drawing on Jean-Daniel Reynaud’s theory of social regulation, we observe that prescribed work hours are increasing at institutions and that the employees’ room for manoeuvre is shrinking. Technological tools lie at the heart of this paradox. They are introduced to improve the quality of work of the employees but in practice contribute to its deterioration.