Workplace privacy

Employees typically must relinquish some of their privacy while at the workplace, but how much they must do so can be a contentious issue. The debate rages on as to whether it is moral, ethical and legal for employers to monitor the actions of their employees. Employers believe that monitoring is necessary both to discourage illicit activity and to limit liability. Although, with this problem of monitoring of employees, many are experiencing a negative effect on emotional and physical stress including fatigue and lack of motivation within the workplace. Employers might choose to monitor employees activities using surveillance cameras, or may wish to record employees activities while using company owned computers or telephones. Courts are finding that disputes between workplace privacy and freedom are being complicated with the advancement of technology as traditional rules that govern areas of privacy law are debatable and becoming less important. ^[1]^[2]

Europe

The EU Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data limits and regulates the collection of personal information on individuals, including workers. Firms that monitor employees' use of e-mail, the internet or phones as part of their business practice, and do not tell employees or have not obtained employee consent to do so, can in most cases be sued under Article 8 the European Convention on Human Rights which provides for the right to respect for his private and family life. On the other hand, although EU law is clear that e-mail interception is illegal, the law is not totally clear as to whether companies may prohibit employees from sending private e-mails.^[3]

United States

In the United States, the situation is quite different. In 2005 for example, a survey of more than 500 U.S. companies found that over half had disciplined and about one in four employers had terminated (fired) an employee for "inappropriate" use of the internet, such as sending an inappropriate e-mail message to a client or supervisor, neglecting work while chatting with friends, or viewing pornography during work hours.^[4]

The tools that are used for this surveillance are often caching proxy servers that are also used for web-monitoring.

References

↑ Howstuffworks "How Workplace Surveillance Works"
↑ Electronic surveillance in the workplace
↑ Sylvia Mercado Kierkegaard (2005) Reading Your Keystroke: Whose Mail Is It? Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Publisher: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, Volume 3592 / 2005, Chapter: p. 256
↑ Surfing the Web on the Company Dime : NPR

Think Before You Type: A Look At Email Privacy In The Workplace

Privacy

Principles	Expectation of privacy

Privacy law	Australia Canada Denmark England European Union New Zealand USA

Areas	Consumer Medical Workplace

Information privacy	Law Financial Internet Political Personally identifiable information (Personal identifiers) Privacy-enhancing technologies Social networking sites

Advocacy Organizations	ACLU Center for Democracy and Technology CPSR Future of Privacy Forum EPIC EFF GNI Privacy International Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

See also	Anonymity Cellphone spying Cyberstalking Data security Human rights Identity theft Panopticon Personality rights Search warrant Surveillance en masse state

Aspects of workplaces

Topics	Absenteeism Abusive supervision Aggression Bullying Conflict Control freak Counterproductive behavior Coworker backstabbing Culture of fear Cyber-aggression Democracy Deviance Discrimination Diversity Divide and rule Emotions Employee engagement Employee monitoring Employee morale Employee silence Employee surveys Empowerment Evaluation Feminisation Fit in or fuck off Friendship Gender inequality Gossip Happiness Harassment Health surveillance Humor Incivility Intervention Jargon Kick the cat Kiss up kick down Listening Machiavellianism Micromanagement Mobbing Narcissism Office politics Performance appraisal Personality clash Phobia Positive psychology Privacy Probation Profanity Psychopathy Queen bee syndrome Rat race Relationships Revenge Role conflict Romance Sabotage Safety and health Spirituality Staff turnover Strategy Stress Toxic workplace Training Undermining Violence Wellness Work–family conflict Workload

See also	Corporation Employment Factory Job Office Organization Whistleblower

Templates	Aspects of corporations Aspects of jobs Aspects of occupations Aspects of organizations Employment

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Workplace privacy

Europe

United States

See also

References