Employee Monitoring

Privacy in the workplace is a hot issue and will continue to be in this, and the next decade. Brought on by high-tech breakthroughs, we are losing our privacy. Employers use all types of monitoring for company protection and employee safety, they monitor phones, computers and use video surveillance, but some where between protection and safety, employers cross the line into privacy. Some employers unknowingly violate our privacy, while others do it constantly with disregard to laws and common ethics. The one thing we should remember is that employers face scrutiny for employee conduct.

Email is now one of the high risk communications facing companies today. Daily headlines demonstrate how email misuse can lead to loss or theft of intellectual properties, confidential information, claims for harassment, loss of data or trade secrets, loss of productivity through wrongful use and even the loss of customers. Employee use of email has become common in today’s world. Email has become such a used medium that employers feel if used inappropriately it can be a pitfall.

Due to economic espionage, in one 17 month period The National Counterintelligence Agency estimated that employers lost $44 billion dollars. It seems that employers greatest risks are insiders such as employees and not outsiders such as hackers. Employees no longer have to photocopy documents. They can simply download data to a CD, DVD or just email potential trade secrets, documents, etc. (Porter II, 2003).

Emails have to be scanned for viruses, spam, and to ensure quality customer service. That being said, why shouldn’t email monitoring be allowed? It shouldn’t be allowed because some one oversees what is being written and read? The question we should all ask is; what do Pro privacy advocates wish to hide? If you are doing your job correctly and efficiently, why should monitoring affect you?

Telephones were the first medium to be monitored. Employer telephone monitoring started out simple. The employer checked who you called and the duration of your conversation. With new technologies however, “the game has changed”.

Employers monitor the conversation word for word. Employers “eavesdrop” to ensure the quality of customer care. A 2001 survey by American Management Association estimated that 12 percent of major U.S. corporations periodically record and review telephone calls, 8 percent store and review voice mail messages and 43 percent monitor the amount of time employees spend on the phone and check the numbers that have been dialed (Lane, 2003).

There are many common places were video monitoring