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How Privacy Issues Affect Businesses

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CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS ISSUES – PRIVACY IN THE WORKPLACE

How Privacy Issues Affect Businesses

How Privacy Issues Affect Businesses
The existing economic and business setting implies on-going efforts towards better understanding and dealing with the challenges of the modern era, which are characterized by the crucial need for making changes due to intense competition and ongoing global crisis’.
As a rule, privacy rights are established by explicit regulations, laws or rules. Some privacy rights are relevant in the workplace and some don't. And even if there is no particular law, a right to privacy can be based on the legal common law notion of having a "reasonable expectation of privacy”, (Lippke, 1998). For employers and employees in the business industry, privacy concerns have become progressively more widespread in the workplace, and with the increased use of electronic resources, privacy at work is even more compound. Consequently, it is imperative that both supervisors and managers have a fundamental understanding of some of the more common privacy rights and issues that can arise, as well as the restrictions that may apply. Some of the more prevalent privacy issues that employees face are drug testing, email monitoring, personnel records, social security numbers, monitoring and eavesdropping, back-ground screening, and medical records. Because of these issues, there are quite a few areas of human capital management in which privacy rights are recognized. Whether these laws put in place by state, federal or local authorities, both employers and employees should be attentive to the issues and how to protect themselves from infringing on other’s rights to privacy or having their rights to privacy being infringed upon (Gross).
The use of email by employees during business hours is a normal occurrence in the 21st century American workplace. A recent

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