Sometimes, as in the case of law enforcement, invasions of privacy may be warranted. If a boss were to monitor every conversation or move, most of us would think of such an environment as more like a prison than a humane workplace." But, like all rights, privacy is not absolute. They are entitled to respect, which requires some attention to privacy. Among other things, that means they have independent moral status defined by some set of rights, not the least of which is the right not to be used by others only as a means to increase overall welfare or profits."Īpplying this to the workplace, Meyer says, "As thinking actors, human beings are more than cogs in an organization-things to be pushed around so as to maximize profits. Meyer, SCU professor of philosophy, explains it this way: "Employees are autonomous moral agents. To determine how far employee and employer moral rights should extend, it's useful to start with a brief exploration of how privacy becomes a moral matter. From an ethical point of view, an employee surely does not give up all of his or her privacy when entering the workplace. Privacy as a Moral Matterīut the fact that employee monitoring is legal does not automatically make it right. In addition, the court held that the company's interest in preventing "inappropriate and unprofessional" conduct outweighed Smyth's privacy rights. The court ruled that Smyth had "no reasonable expectation of privacy" on his employer's system, despite the fact that Pillsbury had repeatedly assured employees that their e-mail was confidential. In the electronic messages, among other offensive references, he threatened to "kill the backstabbing bastards" in sales management. Pillsbury Co., Michael Smyth argued that his privacy was violated and he was wrongfully discharged from his job after his employers read several e-mails he had exchanged with his supervisor. Burkhardt of the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius explain that courts have tried to balance "an employee's reasonable expectation of privacy against the employer's business justification for monitoring."įor example, in Smyth v. In a presentation on employee monitoring, Mark S. "Often, court opinions take the point of view that when the employees are using employers' property-the employers' computers and networks-the employees' expectation of privacy is minimal." When courts take this view, Glancy continues, "if employees want to have private communications, they can enjoy them on their own time and equipment." "There aren't many cases, and they tend to go against the employee," according to Santa Clara University Professor of Law Dorothy Glancy. A federal bill that would have required employers at least to notify workers that they were being monitored failed to come to a vote from 1993 to 1995. However, the law exempts service providers from its provisions, which is commonly interpreted to include employers who provide e-mail and Net access, according to David Sobel, legal counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. The most relevant federal law, the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, prohibits unauthorized interception of various electronic communications, including e-mail. Looking just at e-mail, a 1996 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 36 percent of responding companies searched employee messages regularly and 70 percent said employers should reserve the right to do so. The e-mail trash bin probably still exists on the server, and there are plenty of computer consultants who can retrieve the incriminating message.Īll told, such monitoring is a widespread-and-growing-phenomenon. Beyond installing monitoring software, your boss can simply go into your hard drive, check your cache to see where you've been on the Net, and read your e-mail.ĭid you delete that message you sent about his incompetence? Not good enough. There are also programs to search e-mails and programs to block objectionable Web sites. Though the title is tongue-in-cheek, LittleBrother does represent the tremendous capabilities technology has provided for employers to keep track of what their work force is up to. It identifies the most frequent users and the most popular sites. It employs a database of 45,000 Web sites that are categorized as "productive," "unproductive," or "neutral," and rates employees based on their browsing.
#WHERE CAN I WATCH INVASION 1997 ONLINE SOFTWARE#
Last year, a software package came on the market that allows employers to monitor their workers' Internet use. But when do an employer's legitimate business interests become an unacceptable invasion of worker privacy? New technologies allow employers to check whether employees are wasting time at recreational Web sites or sending unprofessional e-mails. If you happen to be reading this article online from your computer at work, your boss may be reading over your shoulder-electronically.
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