Cyber Civics Series: Digital Communication in the Workplace

On your lunch hour, do you surf the web, send personal emails or instant messages to friends? It is your personal time after all so it might seem like your activities should private too, but you should be aware of how courts view the rights of employees and their employers in such cases. This is Jeanna Matthews and today on Common Sense Computing, we are starting a series on cyber civics with a discussion of digital communication in the workplace.

In general, employers have a broad range of rights over their employees' communication in the workplace. For example, courts have upheld employers' rights to watch all emails sent and all web sites visited by their employees. Monitoring software for network traffic of this kind is widely available. In addition, software exists to record everything you type at your keyboard or even to show your employer a picture of your computer screen.

The general rationale is that the employers own the equipment, provide and maintain the network and the physical facilities and therefore they are free to use it as they see fit to support the efficient operation of their business. In most instances, employers are not even required to notify employees that they are being monitored. However, legally employers are on the safest ground if they explicitly remind employees that their communications and actions are not private.

Of course monitoring of this type is not limited to digital communications - telephone calls can be recorded, security cameras can be placed in the workplace. However, computers have made monitoring much easier. For example, it is much easier to search through emails for specific phrases than it is to search through audio recordings or stacks of paper documents looking for the same information. In fact, studies show that the rate of computerized monitoring of employees is rising primarily because it has become so easy to do. Taken to the extreme, computerized reports could be generated on each employees listing the percentage of time their computer is idle, comparing their typing rate to other employees, tracking the number of emails sent per day, etc.

Now before we all despair of this vision of the "workplace big brother", it is certainly true that most employers don't come close to this level of constant monitoring. However, many companies do routinely review email and other network traffic for various reasons such as detecting virus outbreaks, identifying compromised machines, etc. In the process, they can easily stumble on private information. In any case, it is important to know your rights and to lobby for additional rights by way of contracts with employers or through new legislation. In the meantime, it never hurts to do like my grandmother always told me - don't do or say anything in private that you wouldn't want to admit to in public - well at least not at work.

For more information of our cyber-civics series and related links, visit us on the web at www.commonsensecomputing.org. For Common Sense Computing, this is Jeanna Matthews.

Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace?, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Employers Read Workers' Email, Wired Magazine.

Employers, Employees, E-mail and The Internet , Karen Casser.