The above mentioned article featured in the Time magazine summarises the prevailing trend that employees in The United States have felt that their rights to privacy have been constantly challenged at their workplace. I personally feel that the issue of digital invasion of privacy at workplace will take priority over traditional privacy issues such as employee’s sexual orientation or criminal records in the years to come. More conflicts will gradually arise with the digitising of workplace.
The evolution of the Internet has shaped the way that companies conduct business. This has led to a dramatic change within the workplace and the responsibilities of employees. It is an employer’s responsibility to monitor employees and assess the quality and quantity of work that is being achieved. In the past, employers have done this by monitoring punch cards, productivity reports, profits and consumer satisfaction. The increase in technology and development of computers and the Internet has changed the security and supervision of daily business activities. Companies have a variety of reasons to maintain surveillance within the workplace. There are concerns for employee’s well-being and the productivity and profits of the business. However, the implementation of technology has made it easier for employers to spy on their employees. Employers have the ability to intercept electronic communication and access the information that has been stored on the company’s computers.
The easy access that employers have to this information raises the question of whether employers can ethically monitor employees. Employees are expected to conduct business productively and to complete their job under the expectations that they were hired for. The Internet has made it easier for employees to be distracted from their tasks. Personal emailing and browsing the Internet has become a major concern within corporations, leading to the increase in electronic monitoring.
There are several regulations that should be implemented to ensure employees’ privacy is not disturbed by Internet monitoring. Employees should be made aware of the extent to which they are observed while at work and notified of how often they are going to be monitored whether it is the entire time they are at work or just periodically through the day.
If they are allowed to search the Internet at work for things while on break or throughout the day, they should be told explicitly how much time they are allowed to do that. This way an employer cannot come back at an employee for “wasting time” on the Internet. They should be informed on what actions constitute them to be reprimanded and what is considered to be unproductive. The rules need to be clear cut, so that employees know exactly what they are monitored on. This way it will be easily understood what is appropriate to do at work and if they get monitored and reprimanded they do not have anyone to blame but themselves.
Businesses should have to establish consistent rules and regulations in order to create a standard for electronic surveillance. It is a two way street, if employees want to trust their employers to protect their well-being, the latter should have some trust in their employees. Business policies should be enacted to protect the rights of employees in order to set up ethical boundaries by which they should be monitored. This will form ethical boundaries to be upheld with concern to the extent in which they are monitored through Internet. Internet monitoring is a necessary process, but we cannot allow this to bring down our ethical rights to privacy.
We cannot jeopardise our ethical boundaries because, it will never cease to operate and these extremely strict policies will erode the privacy we have in this country. Consistent and fair rules need to be enacted and policies need to be made for monitoring to protect the well-being of employees as well as their safety.
Done by:
Lim Yong Sheng (A0067398L)