"Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace?"

Internet Privacy
Review and Reaction to the Article:
“Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace?” (Privacy)

Employer monitoring of its workforce is “virtually unregulated”; it is at the will and discretion of the employer. Moreover, communication technologies invite easy monitoring of employee work product and activity while “on the clock” and even while off – site. Generally, employees should be aware that there are few rights to privacy in the work place.
Motivation for monitoring includes concern for litigation over electronic records, productivity, and inappropriate or illegal activity. Most employers have policies regarding their surveillance of employees, but policies may not be legally binding.
In regard to telephone use, employers may monitor any phone conversation, log the numbers dialed, and record the time spent at that number. Electronic mail, voice mail, and instant messaging are not private. Text messages from a workplace provided phone are a little more difficult to obtain insomuch that the storage of the text messages may be from an outside telephone company.
Computer use is employers’ “window” into the workspace. Computer screens may be viewed. File content may be monitored. Even keystrokes may be logged. Employees need not be “notified” that they are being monitored.
Several privacy sites were listed in this article to which a person may refer if they have concerns. The ACLU is active in the area of personal privacy.

Of the reasons proposed by the author to justify employer monitoring, the protection of personal client records was over sighted. Employer surveillance may be fairly heavy in workplaces where large numbers of private or sensitive records are held. This is not secret. Surveillance of record disposition and use is necessary to maintain the trust of clientele. However, there is a balance that should be carefully maintained. Heavily monitoring employees in arenas outside of clientele records seems to express employer distrust of sorts of the employee. It is symptomatic of a breach in healthy employer – employee relationships.

It has occurred to me that for the Social Contract Theory to “work,” the society to which it is applied must for the most part hold in common human values such as respect, good will, and trust. If moral guidelines such as respect and trust erode, then parties must act to protect themselves. Everyone looses. I wonder if ethics and philosophy has any meaning at all in societies where large numbers of its members do not or cannot identify with the greater social impact of their personal behaviours.


Work Cited

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace?” Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. July 2008. 28 Nov. 2008. .