Computer Monitoring Cases

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

When that technology is used to view, collect or disseminate inappropriate content, again employers have cause for concern. Use of workplace computers to access and distribute pornography, for example, frequently results in discipline and workplace harassment complaints. In some cases it can even result in serious criminal investigations.

The most common form of an invasion, to employee privacy rights is email. With the massive use of computers, email has become the biggest communication tool of choice in the workplace. The concern of employers has grown tremendously with the use of email in the workplace. Employers' concern is that, employees can waste time by sending and receiving email for personal use, and they may provide easy access for hackers to entry their computer system. Employers can monitor an employee computer activity to ensure productivity in the workplace. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2006) states, "Unfortunately, if an employee uses a company computer for email use, the employee employer has the right to review the contents of his or her email."

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (n.d.) defines sexual harassment as, “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature” (para. 1). The EEOC (n.d.) expands on the definition of sexual harassment to include “teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious” (para. 4), but create an environment that is hostile or offensive to work in while impacting the employee’s job status. Employees of the organization and the organization’s customers can be instigators of sexual harassment toward an employee. When the harassment occurs in a work capacity, the employer has vicarious liability. Vicarious liability holds the employer or the employer’s principle liable for the actions of the employee or agent (Cornell University Law School, n.d.a) while in a working

Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. As an HR manager, creating a Harassment-Free Workplace is very important. An employer's obligations with regard to sexual harassment arise before any act of sexual harassment occurs. The EEOC requires that employers take reasonable steps to prevent harassment before it occurs. Most states have discrimination prohibition enforcement agencies, which generally impose similar requirements. Many states (including California) require an employer to post a sexual harassment prevention notice advising employees of their right to a harassment-free workplace; this is different from, and over and above, an employer's obligation under Title VII to post a general discrimination prevention poster.( Mark I.

As indicated by some people, the privacy right ought to be extended to workplaces. In the meantime, other individuals feel that this extension would encompass an unnecessary incursion into the managing rights of the management. In a working environment, the right to privacy of employees is a primarily controversial legal topic. This is even more of a concern or of an issue during this age of increased dependence on electronic mail and computers to do business. Because of innovation technology, employers have been enabled to monitor working environment correspondence that happens by means of PCs, for example, messages and Internet utilization. A majority of the employees feel that such observing abuses their privacy rights. Nevertheless, the law does permit it. Some employee activities like private discussions and actual physical spaces at the workplace such as the locked desk drawers are under more privacy protections. Hence, there is a great need for the employers to consider circumstances under which he or she wants to conduct an investigation.

Unfortunately, there is little legal recourse available to employees in terms of workplace monitoring. A 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act prohibits unauthorized interception of electronic communications, including email. However, an exemption is made for service providers, which is commonly interpreted to include employers who offer email and Internet access (Schulman). There are no federal statutes which regulate private employers on broad workplace privacy issues, but there are two federal laws that regulate specific aspects of privacy that arise during the employment relationship:

So as companies evolve into the tech savvy world that utilizes both the intranet, and the internet they can continue to see greater and greater misuse among their workforce. To this end it is necessary for companies to develop stricter compliance models that prompts users when unauthorized access is tried while at work. Furthermore in this case study the author has also revealed that this IT employee has also argued that his rights were violated when the company entered his prior office. The text quoted this as “After the employee was arrested and charged with crimes, he argued that the FBI had violated his constitutional rights by searching his computer without a warrant” (Walsh, 2013, p.619). To explore this very valid point it is clear in the case study that it was not the FBI that searched the computer the company had made a copy of the hard drive outside of the site or proximity of the FBI. Also it is clear that the FBI has taken the word of the company officials by accepting the copy as evidence. The fact still remains that the FBI at any time cane seize the computer and verify the existence of the child pornography sites visited to validate the copies content for prosecution. As for whether or not the FBI violated the IT employee’s constitutional rights they had not because they didn’t invade his office or investigate the hard drive of the computer. These pieces of evidence were provided willingly by the IT employee’s employer to the FBI for consideration of prosecution of the law. So to answer the case study question whether or not there had been a violation of the reasonable expectation of privacy on the IT employee’s computer? The answer is no, the computer is the property of the company and

With the advancement of technology employers are now able to store access and monitor employees’ actions on company computing systems. In 1986, The Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) was introduced which disallow the intentional interception of “any wire, oral or electronic communication”, it provides an exemption that permits right to monitor employees in the course of business (Beesley, 2012). According to the act, if the employee is using equipment owned by the employer then employer is allowed to monitor an employee’s use of computer or phone for a valid reason. Also, if employer has obtained prior written consent from employee to monitor employee computer usage then they are legally authorized to do so.

Currently, employees have few privacy rights, especially while utilizing their employer's communication systems. The corporations' monitoring and recording practices in this area are protected by an exemption in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.

The largest concern in terms of privacy issues arises from instances of employee monitoring or investigation into negative human resource claims. While personal privacy is a right that all employees of G-BioSport East have to the fullest extent, facilitating a diverse workplace atmosphere is one of our utmost concerns. Therefore, in particular cases or rare malfeasants where we believe the facilitation of equality is being hindered, we retain the right to monitor employees and investigate the case to an extent that may cross privacy boundaries. While the intent is by no means to intrude on employee’s private matters, we want to ensure that no cases of discrimination are present and therefore may be limited to breaking privacy standards in order

There have been numerous studies that have been conducted over the topic of computer surveillance in workplace. However, many of these research topics have come to a

Computer surveillance refers to the use of computers to track the activity of individuals at the workplace. It is a common practice especially in industries that have a large number of employees whom they cannot monitor in person. The research will examine computer monitoring as one of the methods which the management uses to monitor employee activity at the workplace. The researcher will examine the advantages of computer monitoring at the workplace in detail in relation to the legal realm, public perception and criticism. Firms store most of their data in the computer database. In fact, many companies rely on computer networks to communicate with its employees, stakeholders and clients.

Employee privacy rights have been the topic of great debate in recent years. This essay will examine: the definition of privacy, employers rights to access activities done in the workplace, to whom the resources such as time and equipment belong, and employee monitoring as an invasion of privacy or a performance evaluation tool. These are the core issues of the employee privacy rights controversy. Employee privacy rights should only be applicable to the personal activities that must take place during working hours. Activities occurring on company time are the property of the employer, and therefore, are not the private property of the employee. Employee privacy rights in the workplace should be

In today’s working world, there are almost no boundaries anymore between the technologies employees used for business and the ones used for pleasure. In fact, 64% of employees say they use the Internet for personal interest during working hours (Office Slacker Stats, 2015). Not to mention, advances in technology have helped employers utilize new forms of employee monitoring. Employee monitoring has emerged as a necessity to every workplace environment and yet it is still a very controversial issue due to the widespread use of technology. Lim (2002) mentions that,