Privacy

Employee Privacy
Employee privacy is something that most employees think they deserve and most employers believe they need to regulate. Employers want to be sure their employees are doing a good job, but employees do not want to believe their every move is being tracked down and recorded. New technologies are making it relatively easy to monitor employees’ actions; whether it is on the internet, e-mail, or telephone. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2009), stated “Over 80% of employers disclose their monitoring practices to employees” (¶ 5). This paper will demonstrate the laws and regulations on monitoring, the privacy policies of AT&T, and assumptions and affects of employees.
What is being monitored?
Companies are using video surveillance, telephone conversation recording, and reviewing e-mail and internet usage. Employees may believe that any sense of privacy has been destroyed (Gruber, n.d.). Cornell (2001), stated, “The computer, e-mail system, and internet access are company property. The computer has the right to monitor all aspects including, but not limited to, monitoring sites visited, reviewing material downloaded, and reviewing e-mail sent and received” (¶ 10). Now this is regardless of what system the employee sends and receives messages from; as long as the equipment is company owned then the company has the right to monitor them.
Further, the company can install new technology that can filter e-mail instead reading every single one. The filter can identify e-mails containing any illegal or restricted material such as pornographic or abusive. Secondly, the company can restrict access to such web sites such as pornographic sites to prevent misuse of the internet. Companies are now using software to monitor how long the computer stays idle to track how long the employee has been away from the computer. Employers can and do use software for the computer that gives them the ability to see what is stored in the employees’ hard disks and computer...