Electronic Surveillance of Emlpoyees

Electronic Surveillance of Employees

By Koffi D. Jackatey

Instructor: Sheritta M. Woodruff

Law, Ethics and Corporate Governance

Strayer University – Spring 2011

1)

According to the new edition of Longman Dictionary of American English (1997) privacy is defined as “the state of being able to be alone, and not seen or heard by other people”. It goes on saying that there is also a legal right to privacy which is “the state of being able to keep your own affairs secret”

Craig Bellamy (2006) defined privacy as “the right to be let alone”. It is a comprehensive right and it is the right most valued by a free people. It is also a fundamental human right. The UN Declaration of Human Rights defined privacy as this: “No one shall be subject to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation.”

Note that privacy is a personal, subjective condition. One person cannot decide for another what his or her sense of privacy should be. Privacy covers only video surveillance or hearing conversation but also computer, internet, and e-mail use, as well as telephone, voice mail and all kind of correspondence.

When we talk about total privacy, there is none if not a little in the workplace. Generally speaking in a workplace, an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in his or her enclosed office when the door is closed, in the locker room (changing room), in the bathroom. But if even in these spaces your telephone and computer can be monitored and your electronic mail and voice mail can be subject to someone else examination, what privacy do you really have? Even if you are not seen or heard, your privacy is still limited in the workplace.

2)

We have just talked about privacy in an enclosed office in which, when the door is closed, you should not be seen or your conversations should not be heard. This should be the place where one should expect virtually total privacy in the... [continues]

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