Recommendation Report : Workplace Privacy Essay

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

* In today’s world of fast-developing technology, in which the click of mouse can dispense a plethora of information, privacy for job seekers and employees is a significant issue. One type of privacy issue in the workplace occurs when a company gathers or circulates private or personal information about employees or candidates for employment.

This view is upheld in many courts. One such case is the McLoren v. Microsoft, and Smyth v. Pillsbury. Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, explain, in the case of McLoren v. Microsoft, McLoren was part of a harassment investigation, and Microsoft broke into McLoren’s password protected personal e-mail folder to gather evidence. McLoren claimed, the password protected folder was like a personal locker, for personal items. The court rejected the argument, stating the e-mail was first received in the inbox of the e-mail provided by Microsoft and moving it to a personal folder is no exception (Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, 2006). In Smyth v. Pillsbury Company, Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, explain, Smyth sent unprofessional comments in an e-mail, from home to his supervisor. Pillsbury fired Smyth. The courts upheld this action, because the e-mail was retrieved from storage at the company owned servers (Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, 2006). With these examples of employees misusing company communication equipment, employers must monitor employees to avoid legal liability.

Employers do have the right to monitor what an employee is doing on the web to make sure the employee is being productive. The monitoring process can help employers and the whole company from theft or other harm begin released by employees. If employees believe that they

This section of the employee handbook is provided as a guideline for employees to understand the company policy and procedures regarding privacy in the workplace. While this section cannot address every possible scenario that may occur, the general policy will serve as a basis of understanding the key workplace issues and employee privacy. This section addresses privacy issues related to personal background information, off-work activities, and the corporate policy on the use of electronic monitoring. These privacy policies are designed to both provide a clear guideline for employees on the difference between job related and personal privacy. The policies are designed to create a standard set of

The issue of privacy is a big concern in the workplace. With the expanding of new technology, many employees are concern about his or, her privacy in the workplace. Employees have the right to go to work knowing that his or, her employer will not invade their privacy. The rights to privacy in the workplace only provide limited protection for workers against monitoring and breach of confidentiality. The National Work Rights Institute states, under the federal law, "the limited protection the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 provides to employees' has been reduced because the statue has been outdated."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse went over computer and workstation monitoring, email monitoring, telephone monitoring, mobile device monitoring, audio and video monitoring, GPS tracking, postal mail and social media monitoring. Employers are able to see what is on your screen, how much time you spend away from your computer and how many keystrokes per hour each employer does. Employers are able to discretely monitor employees with certain computer equipment. Employees may not know they are being monitored. Employers can review email content. Even though the message may have an option for marking an email as private, the company may still have access to the email. You should assume that your work emails are not private. Even though you may delete your emails, the company still has access to them also.

The idea of employee rights involves many complex issues. An employee’s right to a workplace free of discrimination and harmful environmental factors is obvious. Yet, other issues surrounding privacy, personal expression, and communication monitoring are not

In the United States, billions of emails are sent from any business regarding the business done, and sometimes things that aren’t business at all. I’m talking about things such as company sports, company games, or even company free time. Because of this, many companies’ these days monitor their employees’ emails in order to discourage the use of company time for leisure work. These seemingly random checks can tell the company when and/or how an employee has misused their time and misused the companies’ resources for their own gain. According to Halbert and Ingulli, employers have had a long history of interest in scrutinizing their workforces (Halbert & Ingulli, 2006, p. 87). Today, “spying” on their employees has been made many times easier due to technology. Monitoring emails

There are many problems with the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, including issues with the workplace. The United State Constitution and its corresponding Fourth Amendment privacy protection provide little guidance in email monitoring situations. At the very least,

"Privacy. There seems to be no legal issue today that cuts so wide a swath through conflicts confronting American society: from AIDS tests to wiretaps, polygraph test to computerized data bases, the common denominator has been whether the right to privacy outweighs other concerns of society…" This quote from Robert Ellis Smith explains, in one sentence, the absolute need to ensure privacy in the workplace. One of the most interesting, yet controversial, areas concerning public personnel is employee privacy. What limits are there to employers’ intrusions into, and control over, employees’ behaviors and personal properties?

Workplace surveillance has become a controversial issue in the workplace environment. The technological surveillance has developed as a necessity, it doesn’t only help in monitoring what the workers’ do, but it also helps to know how they do it. The modern technological development may have helped the employers’ to have an aerial view of the workplace environment, but it has created a controversy between the employees’ and the employer about the employees’ right to privacy being violated. The employees’ believe the act of workplace surveillance to be hateful that violates their right to privacy and liberties. The surveillance at the workplace often effects workers mental health, productivity, future success in their work and their relationship with the employer, despite being a necessity for the employers’ to protect themselves against the liability, many employers’ in the process of achieving efficiency through surveillance mistakenly ruin their relationship with their employees. The workplace surveillance is helpful in improving the performance of workers or it is contributing towards degrading the performance of workers and their work relationships.

It has been proved that computers help a business ease its activities such as record keeping, monitoring employees and word processing among others. However, the use of computers in the workplace breeds concerns such as security threats and privacy issues. Computer systems are not only prone to hackers but also other security issues that may compromise the company’s activities and social integrity. The research will probe into some of the advantages and disadvantages of computer surveillance.

Privacy in the workplace exists only to a certain extent essentially because the organization has the right to search and seizure their property and the employees which utilize it. Therefore, I believe employees generally are limited to the amount of privacy they have on the job. Generally, much of the equipment, devices, and resources utilized at work are the property of the employer and therefore they have the right to monitor what employees are doing. In essence, employers have every right to invade employee privacy while the employees are utilizing the organization's equipment and resources. Further, employee privacy is limited because essentially employees are trying to safeguard the organization from litigation and the erosion of the organization’s reputation.

In The Los Angeles Times (2013) an article titled, “Tracking workers’ every move can boost productivity,” stated how employers are using surveillance software to monitor employees every movement. Employees are criticizing the monitoring software since it has caused harsher work environment. Employees feel with the monitoring system, employers see them as human machines a way to drive costs down and increase production (Semuels, 2013). Employees are finding that monitoring technology have cost jobs