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Workplace Monitoring

The increasing prevalence of monitoring technologies in the workplace poses many ethical concerns. Existing technologies, like sniffers, can provide monitoring of employee actions on workstations and traffic on workplace networks such as email and instant messaging. Employers may also legally monitor phone conversions to a limited extent. While businesses are attempting to make sure their employees do a good job, excessive monitoring may cause harm to employees. Monitoring could be abused if personal information discovered while monitoring employees is used to discriminate against them.

Analyze the ethical implications of employers' use of workplace monitoring. Examine a couple new or emerging methods of workplace monitoring technology in detail.

Resources

Relevant Class Website Links:

• http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/social/workplace/monitoring/
• http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/privacy/e-mail/

Relevant Outside Website Links:

• How Stuff Works Article on Workplace Surveillance
• ComputerWorld article on workplace surveillance
• Privacy Rights Clearinghouse workplace surveillance article
• Bankrate.com article on privacy in the workplace

Ethical implications

More people are using computers , email, and the internet as part of their daily work activity. These tools can be used to increase the amount of work getting done, but they also make it very easy for an employer to track and record every thing you do online or read all the emails you send.

This raises an ethical question of rather this is a invasion of privacy and wrong?

from the Duke law & technology review :

"Employee use of electronic mail (e-mail) during business hours is a common characteristic of the 21st century American workplace. According to a recent study, over 130 million workers are currently flooding recipients with 2.8 billion e-mail messages each day.1 Employers provide e-mail services to their employees as an efficient means of facilitating both intra-company communication and communication with the outside client base.2 E-mail serves to increase the efficiency of today's workplace because it is inexpensive to provide, simple to install and easy to use.3 E-mail usage also dramatically decreases the use of office-related, paper-based correspondence. However, despite these efficiencies, this technological advancement is also creating collateral problems concerning issues of employee privacy that today's legal environment appears unprepared to solve. This inadequacy in the law is primarily based on the fact that many employees do not know the extent of their privacy rights regarding their company-provided e-mail accounts. In fact, many employees operate under the false assumption that personal e-mail messages sent from work are protected from their employer's scrutiny."

Arguments for workplace monitoring

• Activity's being done on company equipment.
• Ensure that sensitive information is not posted online.
• Employers have the right to track how employees are using company time and monitoring can increase productivity

Arguments against workplace monitoring

• Many feel that emails and web surfing are private activities
• Monitoring will create more stress and friction between employees and employers
• That during lunch and other breaks they should be able to use internet and email for private use

A employee should be aware that technology makes it easy to track what web sites they visits, emails are saved and easy to read, and that the companys policy about work place monitoring should be known.

Current Laws

A 2005 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey shows that:

• 76 percent monitor Website visits
• 55 percent monitor email messages
• 50 percent monitor computer files

With so many companies monitoring in the workplace, and the question it raises about privacy knowing what the current laws are for both employees and employers is important.

Technological Surveillance in the Workplace

MONITORING EMPLOYEE E-MAIL: EFFICIENT WORKPLACES VS. EMPLOYEE PRIVACY

Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace?

Methods of workplace monitoring

The methods used by employers to monitor employees basically fall into two categories, computer surveillance and physical surveillance.

Computer Surveillance

Computer surveillance is one of the most popular forms of workplace surveillance due to the prevalence of computers and internet use in business. It utilizes monitoring software to keep track of employees' computer activities. Computer surveillance methods can be divided into two groups: internet surveillance and desktop surveillance.

Internet Surveillance

Internet surveillance involves monitoring employees' internet activities by watching, and possibly filtering, traffic that is transmitted over the company network. This can be achieved by custom hardware appliances, such as firewalls, monitoring software, or packet sniffing.

Some examples of internet surveillance:

• Email and instant messaging logging
• Logging of websites visited by users
• Blocking of certain websites
• Packet sniffing

Desktop Surveillance

Desktop surveillance consists of directly monitoring activities on an individual's computer by way of monitoring software that is installed on it. This surveillance potentially allows direct monitoring of the screen, logging of keystrokes, logging of idle time, and logging of browsing habits.

Physical Surveillance

Physical surveillance in the workplace is generally carried out through closed-circuit camera monitoring and recording, as well as phone monitoring and recording. In workplaces with access control cards, the time and location of each use of an employee's access card can be logged.