Employee Privacy Report

COM/285
       
          Employee Privacy Report

      People use e-mail and Internet daily at home and at the place of business but rarely thinks about the policies set forth to protect companies and employees from unethical situations and invasion of privacy.   The paper will define Capital One Financial Service e-mail, Internet use, and privacy policies.   The writing will define the current laws in Virginia for regulating employee e-mail and Internet privacy for the company.   Companies implement e-mail and Internet use policies for employees for a reason.   Employees may have assumptions about privacy at work and the reasons some policies affect employee privacy at work.
      Capital One runs security scans on employees computers to protect the company from viruses that could be accidentally sent by an e-mail attachment or accessing Internet websites.   According to authors Friedman and Reed (2007), “reasons an employer monitors employees e-mails could be for productivity concerns and the responsibility to protect stockholders” (p. 2).   The company has access to e-mails that an employee sends or receives on the company’s computer servers.   Employees were sent notices about e-mail policies to avoid e-mails to internal and external contacts that could be offensive, unethical, and discriminatory to others.   For example, an e-mail was sent to numerous people about different color Easter bunnies and one person took offense to the e-mail and reported the incident to the manager.   The manager had a discussion with the person the e-mail policy.   Employees were also told to delete e-mails from the Outlook Inbox if sent from an unknown person because the e-mail could cause a virus to spread from one computer to another computer.

      Employees have no right to privacy regarding Internet access when using a company’s computer.   The company can monitor online activity at work or at anytime an employee use the company’s network to access the Internet.   The company...