IT surveillance and social implications in the workplace

The workplace is where most adults spend roughly half of their waking hours. It is not surprising, therefore, that employment practices affect a broad range of privacy rights. With the exception of polygraph testing, there are few areas of workplace activities that are covered by the American constitution or privacy laws. Accordingly, employers have a great deal of leeway in collecting data on their employees, regulating access to personnel files, and disclosing file contents to outsiders. In addition to the issue of personnel files, workplace privacy involves such practices as polygraph testing, drug testing, computer and telephone monitoring, and interference with personal lifestyle. All of these practices stem from a combination of modern employer concerns employee theft, drug abuse, productivity, courtesy and the protection of trade secrets and technological advances that make it more economical to engage in monitoring and testing. The result for employees, however, is a dramatic increase in workplace surveillance. Unprecedented numbers of workers are urinating into bottles for employer run, drug-testing programs. Thousands of data entry operators have their every keystroke recorded by the very computers on which they are working. Surveillance is so thorough in some offices that employers can check to see exactly when employees leave their work stations to go to the bathroom and how long they take. A significant step toward resolving these issues can be taken by considering the possibilities and limitations posed by the extended use of surveillance and developing a model to balance these competing concerns. The model is proposed a master plan entitled "Monitoring Process Model (MPM)" showing the employers and employees and their inter-related activities. Which uses a thorough examination of the research literature, thus far to advocate the use of justifications for surveillance that Weigh Company interests against a notion of transactional privacy a form of privacy that focuses on trust and relationships.