Surveillance In The Workplace

1700 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Electronic surveillance and privacy

One of the major issues confronting employees in the workplace today is the use of electronic surveillance. Some people believe that electronic surveillance is necessary to ensure that employees are being productive members of the workplace. Others, however, feel that employees should have a reasonable expectation of privacy while on the job. This paper will discuss two of the more common types of surveillance that is used in the workplace, computer and video surveillance. It will discuss the benefits of each method as well as the arguments against, and why both methods are necessary for information security. It will show that computer and video surveillance are not only necessary to protect the company and the employees but confidential business and customer data as well.
By definition, electronic surveillance is “observing or listening to persons, places, or activities—usually in a secretive or unobtrusive manner—with the aid of electronic devices such as cameras, microphones, tape recorders, or wire taps” (“Electronic Surveillance”, n.d.). With the advance in technology however, the ways a person can conduct surveillance in the current day and age goes much deeper than just using a video camera or microphone. If a company wanted to, they could track virtually every aspect of an employee’s day. Whether it is as simple as tracking the time an employee arrives at work or as advanced as GPS tracking in a company phone to follow their exact location throughout the day, workplace surveillance is not going away anytime soon.
Workplace surveillance can take place in many forms but they fall into four main categories. These are data surveillance, visual surveillance, audio surveillance, and tracking surveillance (United Nations office...

... middle of paper ...

...l and ethical reasons. Employers are allowed to review work related documents and emails but if an employee sends a personal email through a work computer, managers are not supposed to read the email and have a duty to stop reading it once they realize the email is not work related.
By using computer and video surveillance, small businesses with only one or two workers per shift can monitor their employees just like a big business with hundreds of workers. From something as simple as signing into work to prove that an employee is there to accessing documents on a work computer, surveillance is necessary to protect the confidentiality of customer data, improve customer interaction, protect employers from theft or lawsuits, and maintain integrity of data. Electronic surveillance is not a new phenomenon and in this day and age, it is unlikely to go away anytime soon.

Show More
Related

  • Persuasive Essay On Dystopian Literature

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    As technology allows for the constant possibility that someone might always be watching you — whether it’s the government, your friends, or

    Read More

  • Big Brother Surveillance

    595 Words  | 2 Pages

    Big Brother's surveillance state is compared to phones in the modern world. The book features telescreens that are dual-purpose devices that play a stream of televised propaganda and record everything going on. Telescreens are present in upper and middle-class homes, but not in the prole homes, since the government doesn't care what the poor people are doing. Today, we have our own telescreen devices that we carry around everywhere with us - cell phones. Like telescreens, cell phones can even be used for government surveillance. As the FBI proved in 2006 when they hacked into a mobster's phone to turn the mic on and record to look at the internet use and warrantless wiretapping controversies. The creation of a state of a never ending war and fear induces people to surrender their rights and liberties that enables the imposition of the surveillance state, “Both rely on the existence of a technological system with the capacity to monitor every citizen’s actions and words (Rohde, 2017).” In 1984, Orwell shares the joyful relationship of Winston Smith and Julia in their secret haven to remind readers what has been lost in society, “He wished above all

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Surveillance Technology

    195 Words  | 1 Pages

    Surveillance technology has improved abundantly overtime. It is so advanced in today’s society, to where you could be sitting in the comfort of your own home, and not know that you are being watched through your webcam. Being as though it is developed to capture ones every move it can be a bit invading. Although surveillance technology is a great resource for many things such as keeping society safe, it could lead to negative outcomes including: invasion of privacy and identity theft. Surveillance technology has grown vigorously since the attack on 9/11. For example, there has said to have been a proliferation of surveillance cameras that have been installed in public places such as Times Square and the nation’s capital. Also Britain being

    Read More

  • Surveillance Essay

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    Surveillance is the monitoring of behaviour. In addition, surveillance system is the process of monitoring the behaviour of people, objects or processes within systems for conformity to expected or desired norms in trusted systems for security control (Cohen and Medioni, 1999). Video surveillance systems have existed 25 years ago whereby it started with 100% analogue system and gradually becoming digital system. The closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera is the most popular video surveillance because of its reliability and low price. The camera does not broadcast images but it records them, so that user can always check to see what occurred while they were away. It is widely used at public spaces and residences for security purposes.

    Read More

  • Privacy Essay

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Privacy vs. Security

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    Print Lazar, Wendi S. “Limitations to Workplace Privacy: Electronic Investigations and Monitoring” Computer and Internet Lawyer (2012): SIRS. Web. The Web. The Web.

    Read More

  • Are Video Cameras An Invasion Of Privacy

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people view video cameras as an invasion of privacy. People think that if they are being recorded, these recordings could be misused. However, in most cases of recording the safety the cameras provide is more important than the possibility of misuse. Misuse of information is also possible on the internet. Any employer can look up an employee or future employee’s profile if his or her name is linked to it. This is not an invasion of privacy, but can be if it is used as discrimination.

    Read More

  • Privacy in the Workplace

    2466 Words  | 5 Pages

    25 Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2002) Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace? . (6/3/2004)

    Read More

  • Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring

    1326 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sometimes there is no middle ground. Monitoring of employees at the workplace, either you side with the employees or you believe management owns the network and should call the shots. The purpose of this paper is to tackle whether monitoring an employee is an invasion of privacy. How new technology has made monitoring of employees by employers possible. The unfairness of computerized monitoring software used to watch employees. The employers desire to ensure that the times they are paying for to be spent in their service is indeed being spent that way. Why not to monitor employees, as well as tips on balancing privacy rights of employees at the job.

    Read More

  • Teaching Computer Ethics in the Classroom

    2418 Words  | 5 Pages

    The computer is considered one of the most important technological advances of the twentieth century. Security and privacy issues have been in existence long before the computer became a vital component of organizations' operations. Nevertheless, the operating features of a computer make it a double-edged sword. Computer technologies with reliable error detection and recording capabilities, permit the invasion of a supposedly secure environment to occur on a grand scale and go undetected. Furthermore, computer and communications technology permit the invasion of a persons' privacy and likewise go undetected. Two forces threaten privacy: one, the growth of information technology with its enhanced capacity for surveillance, communication, computation, storage and retrieval and two, the more insidious threat, the increased value of information in decision making. Information has become more vital in the competitive environment, thus, decision makers covet it even if it viol!

    Read More

  • Ethics of Surveillance

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    One type of surveillance is employee monitoring. Many employers monitor their workers’ activities for one reason or another. Companies monitor employees using many methods. They may use access panels that requires employees to identify themselves to control entry to various area in the building, allowing them to create a log of employee movements. They may also use software to monitor attendance and work hours. Additionally, many programs allows companies to monitor activities performed on work computers, inspect employee emails, log keystrokes, etc. An emerging methods of employee monitor also include social network and search engine monitoring. Employers can find out who their employees are associated with, as well as other potentially incriminating information. (Ciocchetti)

    Read More

  • The Ethics of Workplace Surveillance

    3432 Words  | 7 Pages

    Gordon, Philip L. "Federal Judge's Victory Just the First Shot in the Battle Over Workplace Monitoring." Privacy Foundation Sep. 2001.

    Read More

  • Threat to Internet Privacy

    2650 Words  | 6 Pages

    Technological advances create the capability more and more to snoop or invade privacy without detection. Granted, letters have always been opened and conversations overheard, but with technology, the potential for privacy has diminished. When we are sitting in our living room, our cell phone can give away our location; video cameras can be recording our actions through the windows; and remote microphones can be recording our conversation. Before computers and the Internet, you could gather sensitive information on someone, but the ability to divulge massive amounts of information on a large number of people was beyond possible due to the massive manual labor involved. Computers change this limitation, as computers have the potential to process enormous volumes of information.

    Read More

  • Employee Theft

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    The following memorandum written by a director of a security and safety consulting service discusses a critical issue effecting business in our economy today, that of employee theft. "Our research indicated that, over past six years, no incident of employee theft have been reported within ten of the companies that have been our clients. In analyzing the security practices of these ten companies, we have further learned that each of them requires its employees to wear photo identification badges while at work. In the future, we should recommend the uses of such identification badges to all of our clients." The issue of employee theft is a broad problem and has different labels to identify it, shrinkage for the retail industry and hidden profit loss in the technology sector are serval examples of common terms used for employee theft. The author of this memorandum presents several data points and suggests one recommendation to effect the issue of employee theft based on a sampling of the client population.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Privacy In The Workplace

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Australia, Employers should implement best practice on how to maintain privacy in the workplace in accordance with the privacy standards set out in the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) (Welcome to the Fair Work Ombudsman website. n.d.). Privacy is able to keep our own personal information private and also able to do things without any electronic monitoring in the workplace. Nowadays, many company increased the usage of technology such as internet and email in the workplace. This can create issues in privacy. When employees’ access to web browsing activities during working hours, the employer can be scrutinized it. Employers take this action due to fear lawsuit if employees act in inappropriate ways. Therefore, the best policy is to explain clearly how is appropriate to use email and internet at work and outline what type of use is prohibited in the workplace. Besides that, employer also needs to ensure the employee didn’t disclose or disseminate any important information to the competitors or

    Read More

More about Surveillance In The Workplace

Open Document