Beware: Big Brother is watching you
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Excessive employee monitoring oversteps ethical boundaries
Illustration by Kin Lui.
I used to attribute activites like constantly keeping track of another individual’s e-mails, phone calls, Web site visits and downloads to cyber criminals and stalker-like obsessive exes — until now.
I was amazed to find recently that more than three-fourths of all U.S. employers monitor their employees’ Web site visits in order to prevent inappropriate Web surfing. It was even more unnerving when I discovered that the law does not require that employers notify their employees that they are being monitored. So, if you use a company-owned computer or telephone at work, you should probably assume that your activities are being monitored.
By “being monitored,” I mean you are being watched like a hawk.
When I used to think of monitoring, I imagined real human beings (managers) or video cameras recording employee activities. Then I realized I was lagging way behind on my knowledge of new surveillance technology.
Today, an employer can watch your computer usage from their desk as if he or she was standing over your shoulder.
The latest software allows businesses to silently and undetectably install monitoring programs onto employees’ computers without physically touching them and watch anything the employees do while they do it.
They can see the Web sites you visit, obtain your usernames and passwords by recording keystrokes (including those for personal e-mail accounts and online banking or shopping), record your chats on any Web site, access current and deleted e-mails and phone messages, find any documents downloaded and/or deleted from your computer, locate transferred files, track your online searches and much more without so much as giving prior notice.
Doesn’t this seem a little excessive?
The primary reasons employers cite when justifying the need to monitor employees are arguments to improve employee productivity, have better security, less theft and other legal concerns. It is understandable that businesses would want to increase the productivity of their workers, and because they cannot trust their employees to always stay focused, some sorts of monitoring can be imperative to their success.
But research shows that there are many employers who have less than noble motivations for monitoring their employees — including union busting and avoidance, morality (for example, judging whether an employee might be homosexual), or pure curiosity and need for gossip. Since there are few restrictions on what employers can monitor, their intentions are hardly ever questioned.
A plethora of psychology literature and scholarly research challenge the effectiveness of employee monitoring. If employees know the extent to which they are being monitored, it is only expected that workplace morale would decline, as the lack of trust by the employer would diminish the sense of responsibility and loyalty.
And if it can be proven that such extensive supervision is in fact detrimental, there is little reason to monitor personal e-mails and chats. There are hardly any businesses that depend on such extensive monitoring of their employees to prevent theft and then, most businesses cannot justify such hawkish behavior.
If the argument is to raise productivity, monitoring is pointless unless the employee is notified of it, and even then, research questions this assumption. Productivity can be improved in other, more ethical ways like assigning more work, setting deadlines and motivating employees by fostering a better working environment.
If the argument is to prevent theft, monitoring of personal e-mails will hardly ever lead to a discovery of fraud (especially if the employee knows he or she is being monitored), as a closer watch on company accounts can provide the same information. Even if monitoring saves companies some money, the ethics being surrendered are hardly worth it.
It seems like the police are more regulated than our employers are — at least they need a search warrant or an extremely good reason to search us without consent. Exaggerated security reasons do not justify an employer having total rights to an employee’s personal information, especially without consent. If an employer has a good reason to suspect an employee, there should be restrictions, rules and a standard all employers must meet.
Employers eavesdropping and wiretapping without consent reminds me of former President George W. Bush’s excuses for the administration’s policies in the post-9/11 era. Security reasons do not trump privacy in all situations. Although security, for businesses as well as for our country, is important, there must be restrictions placed upon the extent to which rights can be eroded in times of necessity.
The law says that businesses have the right to monitor everything their employees do because work computers and work phones are employers’ property. As long as employees are using company property, their privacy is non-existent.
But consider this scenario proposed by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University: It’s lunch hour. An employee writes a note to her boyfriend. She puts it in an envelope, affixes her own stamp and drops it in the basket where outgoing mail is collected. Does the fact that the pencil and paper she used belong to her employer give her boss the right to open and read this letter?
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I definitely enjoy every little bit of it and I have bookmarked your blog.
Big brother ain’t watching you mate. You’re watching him.
Thanks for your prompt response. It is very exciting that you feel you must defend your work, which shows me you do feel you it is good work. (I’m not being sarcastic)
If I work for you, why would you steal from me or try to take away my identity? Please tell me that you would not do it because I question your opinion. If you do react criminally when your authority is questioned, you will become a poor supervisor. Why could you not accept the work ethic I describe? I would not be working on my personal affairs all day. I would still provide a good work product. I would only do it through some of the day. How much time would you allow for me to work on my personal affairs while being paid to complete other items? I think it is a fair question.
I guess I am a “staunch supporter of extreme employee monitoring”. When someone is paying me for services, they expect me to produce those services. When they provide me equipment to accomplish those services, they expect me to use that equipment to accomplish those services. I have breaks, and lunch breaks each day to take care of personal items. If I want to email during those times, I can/should use my own phone or laptop to ensure the privacy that I desire. You see I have an expectation of privacy when the equipment I use is mine.
Yamini,
In your article, I think you have a key fact wrong. The Bush wiretapping program didn’t wiretap American citizens. It was designed and used to track suspected terrorist phone calls going out of and in to the U.S. Also, the FISA court granted Bush the warrant to do so.
Your idol, the messiah Barry Obama, in fact strengthened the wire-tapping program. He’s now asking citizens to essentially spy on their neighbors and report them to the Stasi or gov’t officials about his healthcare plan. And you’re worried about a business which has the legal right to do as it pleases with it’s property that is loaned to it’s employees.
Get your facts straight before you write another article like this.
I mean private entities to government entities**
Mr. T,
Since you seem to be a staunch supporter of extreme employee monitoring, I welcome you to work for me if I become a part of the management at UNLV.
While you check your online auction bids, check items on Criagslist, check your e-mails and visit online dating Web sites, and download documents to be printed on my printers, I will record every key stoke and save your user names and passwords for every Web site you visit. Some time later, I or someone in my IT department, who also has access to your information, will use your online banking accounts, your online auction account, and your e-mail account to foster fraud and steal your identity.
The best part is that if you attempt to get all high and mighty with me for violating your privacy because you are at work and using work property, I will simply hold up a copy of your comment.
Does that scenario sound fair to you?
Dan,
It seems like you have not read my article thoroughly – you claim that I am not “crying [my] eyes out” because of extreme governmental oversight; but, in fact, I state:
“Employers eavesdropping and wiretapping without consent reminds me of former President George W. Bush’s excuses for the administration’s policies in the post-9/11 era. Security reasons do not trump privacy in all situations. Although security, for businesses as well as for our country, is important, there must be restrictions placed upon the extent to which rights can be eroded in times of necessity.”
I am opposed to extreme oversight by the government, as well as the private industry, when it trumps privacy rights, in most situations. That said, the examples you give of oversight by the government are not exactly comparable. Government programs for health and cars, as you point out, would not increase oversight or violate privacy. The only difference would be that the “oversight” would shift from private entities to business entities. Also, the school searches you refer to also do not match up to the monitoring done by many employers: while searching your school locker, school police does not, in the process, write down and record your SSN, your bank account numbers, steal your e-mails, or have detailed access to information not relevant to the search. Employers have access to all of that.
It seems Ms. Piplani, that you refer to businesses who have the legal right to monitor what their employees do on the computers and computer services that are owned, operated and maintained by the business to be a Big Brother tactic.
Yet, never have I seen anything written by you about how the government does the same thing, only illegally. Where are crying your eyes out about the government website ‘cars.com’ or something like that for the cash for clunkers program which expressly states that by agreeing the terms and conditions the computer and all the information on it becomes government property.
Are you lamenting when school police and school officials can rip open a student’s locker and search it at their whim? After all, those lockers belong to the school and they are on ‘loan’ to the students for their use. That’s basically the same thing that these businesses are doing, only the schools are government. I don’t see you bemoaning that aspect.
What about when you decrying the provision in the healthcare bill being debated in Congress stating that the government will have access to your bank account and all your financial records?
How about Linda Douglas, who is the propagandist director for the healthcare czar who released a video saying that you should “inform” the white house about “fishy” or “disinformed” emails from your neighbors about the president’s healthcare plan?
I bet you were crying your eyes out about that. But yet, you would prefer to pick on businesses, who are a private organization and who can do whatever with their property as they see fit and who have the legal right to do so. Those businesses are the real big brother, not the government!
Study hard Yamini Piplani. I truly hope you do well at UNLV, and have the opportunity to be a member of management. I will monitor your success and look forward to the opportunity to come work for you.
I will have the best time working for you and using all the equipment and supplies that do not belong to me. I will not have to wait until I get home to check on my online auction bids, or see what the latest items for sale on Craigslist. I will be able to keep my personal email address up and running, which is great for my online dating. When my printer at home breaks, I’m going to save so much money by printing out the personal documents I need right in front of you, my boss. My work on the fantasy football league is going to be so easy while I use your computer.
The best part is that if you attempt to get all high and mighty with me doing all this personal stuff while at work and using work property, I will simply hold up a copy of your article.
You won’t be offended when I ask you to pay for higher internet bandwidth when my song downloads start taking too long, will you?