CSC 379:Week 4, Group 2
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
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Ethical implications
More people are using computers , email, and the internet as part of there 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?
Arguments for work place monitoring
- Activity's being done one 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 work place 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.
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
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/workplace-surveillance2.htm