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Employee Privacy Report COM285 March 2010

Employee Privacy Report Many businesses have policies in place to prevent employees from stealing from the business. Theft can take many forms, such as stealing money, supplies, or products. There are two forms of theft that are often that are often overlooked. The first is theft of time from the company. Essentially this is a person is at work and getting paid by the company, but wastes their time doing personal stuff other than the work they are paid to do. This is theft because the company is paying for a service and the employee is taking the money yet not performing the service. There are many times that employees can forget that this is taking from the company, so they may do this without realizing it. When people talk about theft they tend to imagine walking away with a physical item. There is another form of theft called theft of company information. The information that the company uses is all property of the company, even if it is in a digital format. If I wanted to steal that information all I would have to do is open my e-mail, type who I want it to go to, drag the file to the message and click send. Information such as employees private information, clients, trade secrets, to even as simple as the price we pay for pens. That information can be used to help competitors gain a competitive advantage. All of these reasons are why businesses must implement some form of policy in regards to internet and e-mail use. The laws and constitutional rights associated with privacy rights only extend to employees working in the private sector. Employees working in the private sector are not afforded the same protections that public workers have. There is one exception which is the state of California, the state constitution extends those same constitutional rights to everyone in the state. In 1986 congress brought about the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA). The ECPA prohibits the interception of electronic communication. The problem is

3 that the definition of electronic communication does not specifically mention e-mails. There are three exceptions that companies use to bypass the EPCA. The provider exception which states that that as long as a company provides the e-mail system. This fact alone will exempt the majority of employers. The second exemption is the ordinary course of business exception. This basically means that the company if done through the ordinary course of business may look at electronic communications. The final exception is the consent exception. This requires that the company obtain consent of the employee to monitor their e-mail. The minimum that an employer has to accomplish to obtain this exemption is to send out the companies e-mail policy out to each employee. There is an act called the Notice of Electronic Monitoring Act (NEMA) act that requires that employers notify employees at the time of hire and annually. The majority of oversight for e-mail and internet usage must be done by the individual company. Because of this each individual company must provide their own policies and procedures for dealing with e-mail and internet privacy issues. At the company I work for they have a policy that all regular employees get internet access. There is a website filter on web sites. The filter only allows the individual to go to company approved sites. The number of actual sites that can be reached is extremely limited. Specifically designated individuals can have an access code that allows full internet usage. These people are selected by need to reach or search out new products, services, and clients. With both groups of web usage, there is internet monitoring. All web pages and keystrokes are logged and are run through a database of unacceptable words. Once there is a hit in the database the information technology people will be automatically notified. Email is also monitored at the company I work for. While all email is logged and scanned by a database, there is no filter on where the email is sent. There are filters that prevent email from being received by certain servers.

Most employees believe that their emails are not being watched and that they can say or do what they want in a personal email at work. This belief can get many employees in to trouble. The fact of the matter is that most employees e-mails are being monitored. This In the case of Burke v. Nissan Motor Company, the company fired an employee after certain e-mails were intercepted. The employee sent off some email messages that talked negatively about management. Once the e-mails were intercepted they were then read by administrators and management. The employee ended up suing the company. In a separate case, Flanagan v. Epson America, Inc an employee was fired for refusing to help intercept other employee e-mails. Each of these cases the state ruled in the companies favor. The fact is most people feel secure in their privacy at work. This is in fact far from the truth. The laws do provide minimal protection but it cannot be counted on. To prevent any issues at work a person should refrain from making personal e-mails.

References Journal. (2001). Monitoring Employee E-Mail: Eficient Workplaces Vs. Employee Privacy, (), . Retrieved from http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2001dltr0026.html Locker, K., & Kienzler, D. (2008). Business and Administrative Communication (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Periodical. (1996). Monitoring, 40(4), 70-71.Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=9467917&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=13118&RQT= 309&VName=PQD