Little brother is watching you

1. Little brother is watching you The legal and ethical issue of employer’s looking over the shoulder of their employees. Jeff Linton

2. The issue • Little Brother • Database of 45,000 web sites • Employers monitor their employee’s internet usage. • Productive, nonproductive or neutral • Provides employee ratings • Block objectionable web sites • Remotely enter employee hard drives • Read employee email • Find deleted emails

3. The law • 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, • “illegal for unauthorized individuals to look at someone else’s email,” but the Act exempts service providers from these provisions. • Santa Clara University Professor of Law Dorothy Glancy • "Often, court opinions take the point of view that when the employees are using employers' property—the employers' computers and networks—the employees' expectation of privacy is minimal.”

4. The law • Example: • man fired for inappropriate emails to his supervisor about management. • claimed his rights were violated because the company promised him his emails were private. • courts ruled in the company’s favor • “The company's interest in preventing inappropriate and unprofessional conduct outweighed the man’s privacy rights.”

5. Case for workplace monitoring • employers can use the software to find and delete games that employees have downloaded or installed so….. • No issue with employers expecting computers they provide for work to be used for work so… • Big deal employers look through employee internet browsing history to see if they are spending their time on work- related activities? • Nielsen Media Research: • employees at major corporations such as IBM, Apple, and AT&T logged onto the online edition of Penthouse thousands of times a month.”

6. Case for workplace monitoring • Employees using email to steal key information from them: • The article cited a man who was caught emailing his personal email account $5 million bytes of company source code on company products. It was found out he was doing this to bring it to a rival company of which he was leaving to go work for! • Being sued for inappropriate work atmospheres due to inappropriate emails. • Sexual / Racial Jokes • Pornography in emails

7. Case against workplace monitoring • Employee writes a note to her boyfriend, puts it in an envelope, affixes her own stamp, and drops it in the outgoing mail • Fact that the pencil and paper she used belong to her employer give her boss the right to open and read the letter? • Is this so different than the employer looking into email just because they own the computer?

8. Case against workplace monitoring • As long as their internet usage does not interfere with the job • The time management spends monitoring employee usage is just as much a waste of time • While employee computers are being monitored, who is monitoring management’s computers?

9. Can there be common ground? • Employers: • honest up front about how much “computer privacy” employees will actually have. • Employees: • If told up front and not OK with it, go somewhere else • Survey of employees: • Most employees heard about their e-mail policy by word of mouth or were involved in the writing of the policy.

10. My opinion • No problem • Keep the big picture in mind. • If employee is looking at pornography, then yes, I deserve to have consequences. • If it is shown that employee has spent time on ESPN.com, and work is getting done, then who cares!

11. My opinion • Companies need to take a look at worker productivity in terms of the work that is assigned to employees. • If they see someone is getting their job done but has spent hours on non- work related sites, then give them more work to do, not fire them! • Management should not be allowed to look at employees’ email unless it is needed in some sort of legal issue.

12. Article • Miriam Schulman, Santa Clara University • http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v9n2/brother.html