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...
... middle of paper ...
...ost Database.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Ever since day one, people have been developing and creating all sorts of new methods and machines to help better everyday life in one way or another. Who can forget the invention of the ever-wondrous telephone? And we can’t forget how innovative and life-changing computers have been. However, while all machines have their positive uses, there can also be many negatives depending on how one uses said machines, wiretapping in on phone conversations, using spyware to quietly survey every keystroke and click one makes, and many other methods of unwanted snooping have arisen. As a result, laws have been made to make sure these negative uses are not taken advantage of by anyone. But because of how often technology changes, how can it be known that the laws made so long ago can still uphold proper justice? With the laws that are in place now, it’s a constant struggle to balance security with privacy. Privacy laws should be revised completely in order to create a better happy medium between security and privacy. A common misconception of most is that a happy medium of privacy and security is impossible to achieve. However, as well-said by Daniel Solove, “Protecting privacy doesn’t need to mean scuttling a security measure. Most people concerned about the privacy implications of government surveillance aren’t arguing for no[sic] surveillance and absolute privacy. They’d be fine giving up some privacy as long as appropriate controls, limitations, oversight and accountability mechanisms were in place.”(“5 Myths about Privacy”)
Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace? . (6/3/2004)
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.
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.
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.
A major reason the U.S. needs to increase restrictions on the type and amount of data collected on individuals from the internet is due to the fact that the United States government can track communications and browsing histories of private citizens without warrant or cause. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, ...
Everyday, there are workers who come home from their jobs with a high amount of health issues. Headaches, aching muscles, exhaustion, and many more health issues have workers wondering why this is happening. All of these symptoms can be linked to stress in the workplace. Job stress has become more of a problem than ever before. Numerous studies show that job stress is the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades (“Workplace Stress,” 2004).
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