Electronic Communication Privacy Act Summary

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.

If you're using your computer at work, and your company has a stated policy regarding monitoring your use (perhaps even absent that policy, depending on how you read the case law), then you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in anything that you do online using your work computer, whether that's during your work day, after hours, or while traveling. Your company can legitimately "eavesdrop" on anything you do with their equipment, and there's little you can do about it.

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.

A. According to the Communications Decency Act(CDA), cyberspace has many of the problems conterversise among crime, advertising,gaming,copyright,gambling

This section of the employee handbook is provided as a guideline for employees to understand the company policy and procedures regarding privacy in the workplace. While this section cannot address every possible scenario that may occur, the general policy will serve as a basis of understanding the key workplace issues and employee privacy. This section addresses privacy issues related to personal background information, off-work activities, and the corporate policy on the use of electronic monitoring. These privacy policies are designed to both provide a clear guideline for employees on the difference between job related and personal privacy. The policies are designed to create a standard set of

According to the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, "an employer can monitor their employee to ensure adequate job performance and supervise customer contacts."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse went over computer and workstation monitoring, email monitoring, telephone monitoring, mobile device monitoring, audio and video monitoring, GPS tracking, postal mail and social media monitoring. Employers are able to see what is on your screen, how much time you spend away from your computer and how many keystrokes per hour each employer does. Employers are able to discretely monitor employees with certain computer equipment. Employees may not know they are being monitored. Employers can review email content. Even though the message may have an option for marking an email as private, the company may still have access to the email. You should assume that your work emails are not private. Even though you may delete your emails, the company still has access to them also.

Employers have the right and responsibility to monitor their place of business to protect themselves and their employees from invasion . The irony is that this can only be possible if an employer is able to monitor communications and exchanges . Therefore , for a company to be able to afford the protection that employees need , they must surrender in trust their privacy to the company

In the United States, billions of emails are sent from any business regarding the business done, and sometimes things that aren’t business at all. I’m talking about things such as company sports, company games, or even company free time. Because of this, many companies’ these days monitor their employees’ emails in order to discourage the use of company time for leisure work. These seemingly random checks can tell the company when and/or how an employee has misused their time and misused the companies’ resources for their own gain. According to Halbert and Ingulli, employers have had a long history of interest in scrutinizing their workforces (Halbert & Ingulli, 2006, p. 87). Today, “spying” on their employees has been made many times easier due to technology. Monitoring emails

The article “Little brother is watching you” by Miriam Schulman is an informative article that speaks of workplace privacy, specifically the monitoring software “Little Brother”. This program allows employers to access anything that their employees are accessing at work using company technology. This software allows employers to access intimate, and private information that is accessed at work. In this day and age, we live in a world where it’s impossible to “turn off” your work life, you are expected to check emails and answer calls whether they are on the clock or not. Miriam argues the case that if an employee writes a letter to their boyfriend on their lunch break with a pen and paper that is property of the company, does the employer have the right to open and read that letter?

There are many problems with the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, including issues with the workplace. The United State Constitution and its corresponding Fourth Amendment privacy protection provide little guidance in email monitoring situations. At the very least,

To proceed, we would assume that it is the company's policy for employees issued with company devices to sign a consent form acknowledging company's right to monitor all aspect of employee's communication on and off the job. Going back to the issue of the complexity involved in electronic monitoring mentioned above, extreme care was taken in investigating the circumstances that bear out the fact that Bill is indeed guilty of conduction his own business with company - issued phone. To this end, not to expose the company to a potential lawsuit for invasion of Bill's personal domain we considered two of the factors the courts examine to ensure the legality of our actions investigating the matter and deciding a possible disciplinary action. First, we ensure that the monitoring process is not unduly obnoxious as the courts refer to a means that "deviates from the normally accepted means of recovering the relevant information (Ingulli H ., 2012)." The second factor addresses the reason for the intrusion. Since in fact the law views electronic surveillance and monitoring of another person as a search per se, we ensure that care is taken to confine information gathering only to the investigation on hand. In consideration of the above, if the information gathered confirms that Bill was, in fact, guilty of the behavior, disciplinary actions to be determined would be

The government has set new standards to obtain digital information of citizens introduced in 1986. The law has not changed, but the technology dramatically. ( 'US public-private partnership for cyber-security ', 2010). The government has privilege to get electronic data without needing a warrant. Some sort of movement launched against it to bring a small variation, but the debate is still going on.

Workplace surveillance has become a controversial issue in the workplace environment. The technological surveillance has developed as a necessity, it doesn’t only help in monitoring what the workers’ do, but it also helps to know how they do it. The modern technological development may have helped the employers’ to have an aerial view of the workplace environment, but it has created a controversy between the employees’ and the employer about the employees’ right to privacy being violated. The employees’ believe the act of workplace surveillance to be hateful that violates their right to privacy and liberties. The surveillance at the workplace often effects workers mental health, productivity, future success in their work and their relationship with the employer, despite being a necessity for the employers’ to protect themselves against the liability, many employers’ in the process of achieving efficiency through surveillance mistakenly ruin their relationship with their employees. The workplace surveillance is helpful in improving the performance of workers or it is contributing towards degrading the performance of workers and their work relationships.

It has been proved that computers help a business ease its activities such as record keeping, monitoring employees and word processing among others. However, the use of computers in the workplace breeds concerns such as security threats and privacy issues. Computer systems are not only prone to hackers but also other security issues that may compromise the company’s activities and social integrity. The research will probe into some of the advantages and disadvantages of computer surveillance.