Big brother is definitely watching

February 15 2002 - The Bush administration's proposal to seek out terrorists by giving government agencies power to spy on citizen e-mail, mine electronic databases and plant surveillance equipment has caused controversy.

But these measures are almost routine in corporate America, according to Matthew W. Finkin, a University of Illinois law professor and privacy expert. "Long before Sept. 11, technology was creating a workplace where phone calls, voice mail and e-mail messages were regularly monitored by employers," said Finkin.

"There are no standards, legal or otherwise, that exist for limiting the collection or utilization of personal information about employees in cyberspace," Finkin pointed out. "The only law on the books, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, permits systematic employer monitoring so long as employees have notice or so long as it is done as a matter of routine for business purposes."

The Internet has been a major driver in the move towards monitoring employee behavior. "Data for 2001 indicate that 77.7 percent of large companies responding to a survey by the American Management Association record and review employee communications or other activities on the job by monitoring e-mail messages and computer files," Finkin said (see below).

An estimated 41 million "online" workers have their e-mail or Internet access monitored. About 14 million employees are under "continuous" surveillance whereas the others are open to spot checks or "reasonable suspicion" searches of computer records.

Increased business surveillance involves a number of factors, according to Finkin. Organizations are worried about internet use in worktime for stock trading, displaying and transmitting pornography or passing on confidential information.

Employers have legitimate concerns but Finkin believes that the implications of cyber-monitoring need to be reviewed. "There are lots of needs of commerce that could be satisfied without sacrificing privacy or revealing unnecessary information about employees," he said.

Background article

April 18 2001 - 78% of large U.S businesses check their employees' e-mail, Internet, or telephone calls or even videotape staff at work - up from 74% last year. This is the conclusion of the American Management Association’s (AMA) annual survey on workplace monitoring and surveillance. This compares with just 35% in 1997.

According to the AMA Survey of 1,627 organizations focused on large and mid-sized firms:

- 63% of major companies monitor employees’ Internet connections - compared with 54% last year
- 47% store and review employee e-mail - up from 38% in 2000
- 40% block connections to 'unauthorized or inappropriate' websites - again up on last year's 29% sites, up from 29 percent last year.
- 27% of major companies in the survey said that they had fired employees for misuse of office e-mail or Internet connections
- 65% said that there had been disciplinary measures for those offenses
- 36% stored and reviewed computer files
- 15% video recorded employees at work
- 12% recorded and reviewed telephone messages (43% surveyed telephone numbers called and time spent on the phone)

"Privacy in today’s workplace is largely illusory. In this era of open space cubicles, shared desk space, networked computers and teleworkers, it is hard to realistically hold onto a belief in private space," said Ellen Bayer, AMA’s human resources practice leader. "Work is carried out on equipment belonging to employers who have a legal right to the work product of the employees using it."

"The lines between one’s personal and professional life can blur with expectations of 24/7 work week, but employees ought to engage in some discretion about personal activities carried out during the official hours of work," Bayer said. "The obligations for respect are mutual. It is up to clear-thinking managers and realistic employees to leverage the good that monitoring can accomplish and work to assure those adequate safeguards are in place to avoid abuses."

"It’s not just a matter of corporate curiosity, but very real worries about productivity and liability that push these policies," said Eric Rolfe Greenberg, director of management studies for AMA. "Personal e-mail can clog a company’s telecommunications system, and sexually explicit or other inappropriate material downloaded from the Internet can lead to claims of a hostile work environment."

"It’s important to note, however, that by far the greater share of this monitoring is performed on a spot-check basis rather than an ongoing, 24-hour basis," Greenberg added. "And, importantly, 90 percent of the companies engaging in any of these practices inform their employees that they’re doing so."