Privacy in the Workplace
In recent times our right to privacy has been under fire, particularly in the workplace. With the fear of terrorists in today's world, we have been willing to sacrifice some of our individual rights for the rights of a society as a whole. A majority of these changes have taken place since September 11, 2001, in an attempt to prevent future terrorist attacks. New legislation, such as the USA Patriot Act, which decreases the limitations on the federal government's ability to monitor people, has been created for this reason. Although new legislation may be instrumental in the defense of our national security, we must take a strong look at their effect and the effect of decreased privacy in the workplace. Advances in technology, coupled with new legislation, has had a serious toll on our privacy especially at work. It is now possible to monitor an employee's keystrokes on the computer to how much time a day is spent on bathroom breaks. It is imperative for us to take a stand against these violations to our rights
In the years prior to the events of September 11, 2001 ("9/11"), very few voices of support, whether corporate or individual, existed for new technologies that could be considered intrusive. After the series of terrorist attacks in 2001, many Americans began to believe that these new intrusive technologies were a "necessary evil" in the prevention of future attacks by terrorist groups. While the events following 9/11 may have changed the attitude of the American public regarding national security, there is little indication it has changed their feelings about more personal aspects of privacy (Townsend & Bennet, 2003).
Employers have always monitored employees to insure good work performanc...
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Ryan, D. & Watson, R. (2004). A healthier future; Workplace stress is increasingly recognized as a contributing factor to employee absence and illness. Investors in Health (IIH) is one response to the problem. Occupational Health, July 3, 2004, p. 20. Retrieved on October 21, 2004 from InfoTrac OneFile Database.
Smith, S. (2002). Rethinking e-mail monitoring in today's workplace. Westchester County Business Journal, 41(12), p. 4. Retrieved October 19, 2004, from EBSCOhost Database.
Stewart, K. B. (2003). USA Patriot Act unpatriotic. New York Amsterdam News, 94(29), p. 13. Retrieved on October 20, 2004, from EBSCOhost Database.
Townsend, A. M. & Bennett, J. T. (2003). Privacy, technology, and conflict: emerging issues and action in workplace privacy. Journal of Labor Research, 24(2), p. 195. Retrieved October 19, 2004, from EBSCOhost Database.
Edward Snowden is America’s most recent controversial figure. People can’t decide if he is their hero or traitor. Nevertheless, his leaks on the U.S. government surveillance program, PRISM, demand an explanation. Many American citizens have been enraged by the thought of the government tracing their telecommunication systems. According to factbrowser.com 54% of internet users would rather have more online privacy, even at the risk of security (Facts Tagged with Privacy). They say it is an infringement on their privacy rights of the constitution. However, some of them don’t mind; they believe it will help thwart the acts of terrorists. Both sides make a good point, but the inevitable future is one where the government is adapting as technology is changing. In order for us to continue living in the new digital decade, we must accept the government’s ability to surveil us.
Employers monitor email accounts and company computers mainly for two reasons. Reason one is that they don’t want their employees wasting company time for personal use. In most places, that is considered a very good reason, because if an employee is using company time for personal things, then work isn’t being done. Then it causes problems for everyone. Reason two is that employers want to make sure that employees aren’t doing anything illegal through either email or other internet sites.
Technological advancements have positively impacted society by increasing safety, promoting global communication, and presenting easy access to knowledge. However, there are many negative impacts to these devices, including the manipulation of privacy.
Rosen, David. Four ways your privacy is being invaded. 11 september 2012. 13 february 2014 .
Boykoff, J. (2006). Review of How Patriotic is the Patriot Act? Freedom Versus Security in the Age of Terrorism, by Amitai Etzioni. The Journal of Politics, 68(2), 457-487.
Constitution, the founding fathers recognized that citizens in a democracy need privacy for their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects.’ That remains as true as ever, but our privacy laws have not kept up as technology has changed the way we hold information.”
Taylor, James Stacey. "In Praise of Big Brother: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Government Surveillance." Public Affairs Quarterly July 2005: 227-246.
Terms and Laws have gradually change overtime dealing with different situations and economic troubles in the world in general. So then dealing with these issues the workplace has become more complex with little or no rights to privacy. Privacy briefly explained is a person’s right to choose whether or not to withhold information they feel is dear to them. If this something will not hurt the business, or its party members then it should be kept private. All employees always should have rights to privacy in the workplace. Five main points dealing with privacy in public/private structured businesses are background checks, respect of off duty activities/leisure, drug testing, workplace search, and monitoring of workplace activity. Coming to a conclusion on privacy, are there any limits to which employers have limitations to intrusion, dominance on the employee’s behavior, and properties.
Print Lazar, Wendi S. “Limitations to Workplace Privacy: Electronic Investigations and Monitoring” Computer and Internet Lawyer (2012): SIRS. Web. The Web. The Web.
In his book Holtzman discusses how new technology threatens our privacy and how the law is incapable of protecting us. Holtzman has received a B.S. in Computer Science (326). He has worked as a security advisor in several organizations (326). By restating the title of the book in the introduction Holtzman claims that having no control over our personal information has resulted in the loss of privacy (xix). As Senator Evan Bayh mentioned in the foreword, the book examines the thin border “between protecting the United States and protecting our civil rights” (vi). Altogether, the main point of Privacy Lost is to deliver the message that “you have the right to control information about yourself” (xxv).
In this case, the employee had the right to assume that he would have privacy because he had an office that needed a key to access it and an employee created password to have access to his computer. This assume privacy was extended to the employee’s personal items held within his office also. Moreover, the company’s computer which the employee created a personal password to access, held privacy documents etc. within it. Furthermore, the employee had the right to assume that he would have privacy but that privacy does not extend to the right to violate the employer’s policy, rules and/or regulations nor violating the laws that protect children from harm.
With technology becoming a huge part in society, privacy and security are even more important and in more danger. The Department of Informational Sciences article on privacy is being challenged as well as the popular source, “Technology Is Invading Our Privacy”; each explores how our privacy is in fact decreasing. The Department of Informational Technology delves into the fundamentals of privacy, “Privacy can be defined as an individual condition of life characterized by exclusion from publicity.” It also states that there are many laws that help protect civilians from losing their constitutional right to privacy to the best of their abilities, including: The Privacy Act of 1974, and Guidelines for the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flow of Personal Data of 1980. However, clearly these rules and guidelines are outdated compared to how far our technology has come from 1974. In fact, the amount of innovation and inventions with technology from then is absolutely incredible, and filled with things that couldn't even be imagined 42 years ago. The facts of the Department of Informational Technology are consistent with the article “Technology is Invading our Privacy”. This article gives examples of the issues that arise when the law is not up to date with the advancements of our society. This article reports that the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that “as of May 2013, 91% of American adults own some sort of cell phone...As February 2012, 61% of American adults own a laptop. All three study results showed an increase in ownership over the previous years.” (Pew Internet and American Life Project). One explanation of this finding is that more people are susceptible to intrusive nature of technology. The very device itself is constantly collecting data of what the consumer is going including location tracking, online activity, and personal information entered into the device.
Digital privacy concerns, which have been a major issue in our country since 2001, increasingly violate our basic human rights as global citizens. The growing amount of government surveillance has manifested in the enactment of acts such as SOPA and CISPA. Although their intent on stopping digital piracy and attacks were clear, both were immediately met with harsh criticism; they allowed big corporations to violate our privacy rights by sharing our personal information with both other companies and the government. Our President, although publicly expressing his acknowledgement of the issue, failed to discuss an array of other pressing dilemmas regulated by the recently exposed National Security Agency (NSA), especially those involving the mass data stockpiles and the rights of foreigners against immoderate and disproportionate surveillance by the US. Furthermore, the intentions of the NSA still remain unclear; why is the collection and the extended retention of this data useful? Those in power believe that the collection of this information allows them to preempt terrorist attacks; a very difficult claim to prove. Our lack of clear answers demonstrate the need for a larger audience who support government transparency. The NSA’s misconduct has dealt multiple blows to the rights of millions both at home and abroad, and the amount of secrecy involving this agency shrouds it in obscurity, inhibiting public debate about these crucial matters.
While seeing your employee on CNN’s website reading the news, or on Amazon’s website doing online shopping can be frustrating, it is when the employee is using their time toward “not safe for work” (or NSFW) online activities, when surveillance can be quite useful. An example of workplace surveillance from over twenty years ago shows that inappropriate use of the internet while at work has been around for a long time. In this case, computer logs of both the employees of IBM and Apple Inc. showed that they had visited Penthouse Magazine’s website over 13,000 in a single month (Cox and Goette and Young, 2005). Legal action did not occur, but this shows that inappropriate misuse of time in the office has been around since computers have been placed in a work environment over two decades
You get to work, login, check your email, and examine the values of your stocks. Have you done something wrong? Should your manager care about what you do with those couple of minutes? Hypothetically, if you consider 48 working days per year, with 40 hours per weeks (totally 9,600 hours of work a year), then the daily five minutes of personal internet usage mounts to approximately 24 hours (three working days) of wasted company time. In a capitalist economy, such inefficiency impedes the goal to maximize profit; therefore, compelling businesses to turn to rigorous surveillance to discourage inappropriate use of company resources and to promote productivity. As the American legislative and judicial culture has generally upheld companies’ proprietary rights to monitor their employees at the expense of employees’ privacy, civil libertarians have protested to what they claim to be direct violation of the employees’ right to privacy, which the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment implicitly guarantee.