Dania Afif El-Achmar The Rights and Ethics of Employees with Respect to Privacy at Work Widespread use of electronic communications media such as e-mail and information resources such as the Internet has prompted many employers to engage in electronic surveillance of their employees. Employers are monitoring—and even recording—employees’ personal phone calls, e-mails, and workplace conversations. Video cameras are trained on employee parking lots, break areas, and other parts of the workplace. Today’s employers have the legal right to conduct search and seizure of employees’ personal property; monitor the employee’s telephone calls, workplace computer, Internet, fax use, and e-mail; perform employee drug testing; and conduct investigation and surveillance of employees. Electronic Surveillance The ethics of employee surveillance are problematic, because both the company and the employee have rights, and these rights can conflict. The employee owes the company a solid day’s work and protection of proprietary property and knowledge, but the employee can claim rights such as privacy, compensation for injury, freedom from harassment, and a living wage. Employees are often not aware of the fact that their e-mails are being read by their employers. Moreover, most employees are unaware of the extent to which their employers can and actually do monitor what they do. Studies indicated that worldwide, approximately 27 million employees workforce, are under continuous Internet or e-mail use surveillance at work, more than onefourth of the global online workforce consisting of employees that regularly use Internet and/or e-mail access at work. A concept that dramatically reduced employee rights was that of employment at will. Beyond Electronic Surveillance Admittedly, today’s workplace is widespread with electronic conveniences, many of which afford employers a means of monitoring their employees. Some companies where employees are not allowed to smoke, for example, insist that their employees stop smoking altogether, not even indulging when at home. Effects of Surveillance and Diminished Employee Rights The loss of privacy impacts employees at every level. Furthermore, organizations that set up systems to facilitate monitoring—even if they do not actually monitor their employees—breach the control and unrestricted access that employees have over their own information, and thus the employees’ privacy. There are, to be certain, certain legitimate reasons for monitoring employees. The ethics of employee surveillance and violation of privacy are compounded by employers’ demands. Companies that appreciate having employees that are willing to work long hours should be accommodating when those employees have to make personal arrangements over the phone or the Internet. It is unethical and unreasonable to expect employees to work overtime—especially if they are salaried employees—without allowing them to conduct brief personal business at work. It is also unethical for companies to expect employees to safeguard proprietary company information without providing equal protection for employees’ personal information. Why Violating Employee Rights Disadvantages Companies 1

Dania Afif El-Achmar Companies firmly well-established in a multitude of employee controls and monitoring practices may find it intimidating to consider allowing employees the autonomy to use electronic technologies without surveillance. Employees that are cognizant of employer monitoring may be unwilling to use the electronic systems available in the workplace anymore than is absolutely necessary. Expecting employees to use these tools to improve their work yet engaging in surveillance puts employees in an impossible situation. Conclusion While monitoring may ensure that employees do not waste company time playing computer games or surfing the Internet, it also corrupts normal employee interactions, creating a workplace where people are afraid to collaborate or conduct research electronically and where they lose the ability to solve problems together. Not only does such monitoring increase employee stress and create an untenable situation in which employees are expected to use electronic resources but subject to punitive action if they use them “inappropriately”—a valuation that is rarely backed up by definitive standards, the value of surveillance is overestimated by employers and its disadvantages overlooked. In the last analysis, where people must sacrifice their privacy in order to keep their jobs, they are not being treated fairly or ethically, and their employers are giving up the best that employees have to offer—their creativity, enjoyment of their jobs, and positive workplace collaboration and interaction—to achieve an excessively controlled workplace where no one is happy and creativity is dead. Instead of unbounded surveillance, companies are better advised to choose their employees carefully and monitor them just enough to cover company assets and employee security, while still promoting a fertile environment where friendship, collaborative problemsolving, and innovation are key. Privacy is a basic human right, and ethics demands that it be honored and promoted in the workplace.

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