CS 312 Yevgeniy Bangiyev

Summary of “Companies Step Up Electronic Monitoring of Employees”

The article describes a survey taken by the American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute in 2005. The survey indicates that electronic monitoring of employees by employers is continuing to increase. This is not only due to employers trying to keep an eye on productivity and prevent exposure of important company information, but also because of worries about leaving any kind of electronic evidence that could be used against the company in court.

The survey involved more than 500 companies and shows that half of them have fired employees for their internet or email use. Non-work-related web browsing and email activity are the greatest concerns of the companies surveyed and so these are the most widely punished work offenses under electronic monitoring. Only six percent of companies have fired employees for their work telephone use.

Besides monitoring internet, email, and work telephone use, employers also examine keystrokes, keyboard use time, file usage, and even time spent on a cell-phone (using GPS). A large majority of the companies do warn their employees of how they will be monitored.

This increase in employee monitoring has generated many lawsuits concerning privacy, which resulted in limits on how employers are allowed to watch their workers. As an example, the article tells of the United Kingdom’s Data Protection Act of 1998. The Act forces employers to document a justifiable reason for monitoring an employee and to use the least violating method of monitoring possible in each case. Video surveillance is only allowed after notifying the person or people who will be observed, except in extreme circumstances. Such laws are also present in other European countries and Canada.

A recent case in Canada demonstrated the implementation of these laws. The issue in the case was the installation of a keystroke logging software on a computer of a library employee. The court ruled against the library since there was no just reason for why that employee was singled out, but most importantly, because a less violating method could have been used to examine the employee’s computer activities.

The article concludes that electronic monitoring of employees is legitimate, but employers should limit the invasion of privacy as much as possible. Also, the author seems to imply that the U.S. should adopt similar employee monitoring laws as Canada and the U.K have.

Heydary, Javad. “Companies Step Up Electronic Monitoring of Employees.” E-Commerce Times 21 July 2005. 11 February 2006

<http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/44850.html>.