Privacy Issues in the Workplace: What Employers and Employees Need to Know

Small businesses today are faced with a myriad of privacy issues. Not only are they impacted by traditional privacy issues, such as monitoring phone calls and personal interactions in the workplace, but they are also impacted by electronic and video privacy issues raised by advances in technology. While communication and electronic technology has made doing business much easier, they also have made it easier to produce scenarios in the workplace that walk the line between legal and illegal employment practices.

Employer Rights and Responsibilities

The law indicates that businesses have a right to monitor their employees' actions and communications if the monitoring has a legitimate function and if it is done through normal business practices. This means that an employee and their communications can be monitored if the employer is concerned about security and safety of their employees, customers and business properties, or if they are using the monitoring as a training tool. Also in order for the monitoring to be considered legal the employer has to use normal business practices. This means that they cannot utilize high-tech electronic spy gadgets that are designed to retrieve information unscrupulously.

Another issue that employers have to content with is informing their employees that they are being monitored. This is key if the employer wants to protect themselves from legal problems related to the monitoring. Informed monitoring can occur through a number of practices. For example, the company can develop a written policy that outlines how, where and when employees are being monitored. Companies can also verbally tell employees that their phone conversations are being monitored for training purposes or for evaluative purposes.

Employee Rights and Responsibilities

While employers have the right to monitor their employees in order to protect their business interests, there are certain situations that are protected by privacy rights. For example, employees have the right to privacy in areas of the work environment that have been established for non-work activities. For example, locker rooms and rest rooms are two areas where employees have the right to privacy. However, this does not mean that these areas cannot be monitored, but it does mean that the employer would have to inform employees of the monitoring.

Finally, employees can expect the right to privacy during certain situations, such as when discussing employment issues with the human resources manager, when filing sexual harassment or discrimination complaints or when they have expressly requested privacy for a work related or personal meeting.

Employees concerned with privacy issues at work need to realize that while they are at work and using company equipment that their privacy rights are limited. If the employee has a communication that they do not want to be monitored, then they will need to conduct that communication using their own cell phone, during a break period and in an area that has either been designated as a private area for employees or that is off company property.

To make things less confusing, just realize that if you are using company equipment you are being monitored, so you need to act accordingly.

References

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/privacy/Module3_Intronew.html