New technologies are popping up to allow employers to surveillance almost everything an employee does on a computer. Your boss can not only go onto your hard drive and check to see where you've have gone on the internet but read your email. This "check up" seemed too complicated with the number of employees in a company, so a software package is now made available to do the monitoring for you. This software has flagged over 45,000 Web sites that are either categorized as "productive", "unproductive", or "neutral", and also rates employees based on their browsing history. This software is so intelligent that it will also identify the most frequent users and popular sites. This software is called LittleBrother.
When you're working now, you may be in constant fear of being reprimanded for spending personal time on your computer while on the job. Did you delete that email that was sent from your computer about your boss? Did you accidentally go to Facebook out of habit? These may be questions you think about that can threaten your job security.
"Beyond worry about lost productivity, employers have legitimate concerns about the use of e-mail in thefts of proprietary information, which, according to the "Handbook on White Collar Crime," account for more than $2 billion in losses a year" (SLU). Programs such as LittleBrother are programmed to catch suspect words to find potential instances of theft through email and hopefully cut down on financial losses in businesses.
An example of this "crime" was a case of a former employee of Cadence Systems. He was charged with stealing proprietary information with the intent of bringing it to a rival software maker. This employee was caught due to the fact that he sent a file that contained 5 million bytes to his personal email before leaving the company. Such a large message alerted his employer and suggested that he might be sending "source code for the company's products" which prompted his employer to contact the police.
In situations like these, it is hard to say that surveillance isn't necessary. The intrusion of privacy to prevent unproductive employees is one issue, but it's a different and acceptable intrusion of privacy when it comes to preventing theft and a company losing millions of dollars.
I think they are both acceptable intrusions of privacy. When you are employed by a company and at work you are on their time. You are there to provide your skills for the company. I understand that almost everyone spends some personal time on the compute at work throughout the week and you should only be punished if it is to an excess, which would have to be determined by the employer. You also need to keep your company monitored and protected from theft because you cant trust everyone.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you should be allowed to have some personal time on the computer. Especially on your lunch break! Being monitored is fine but there should be exceptions.
DeleteI think that companies need some type of monitoring because they need protection from these kind of examples. Also, they are concerned about employees not being productive during their work hours. A company where I interned in had internet monitoring in order to prevent workers from getting distracted or going off track during their work hours.
ReplyDeleteI believe that monitoring employee's computer use is acceptable to a certain extent. I think employees should be allowed a certain amount of time (maybe up to 5 or 10 minutes for a regular 8 hour work day). It is important to monitor employee's computer use for examples like the one provided above. Without this monitoring, the company could be extremely harmed through internal behavior. It is important to catch these wrong doings before they cant negatively affect the company.
ReplyDeleteI agree it's hard to draw a line when it comes to privacy concerns. I definitely think there needs to be some kind of monitoring especially if you are working with sensitive information. When you are on the clock, your time and the computer you are using belong to the company so I'm not against monitoring.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement. When you are at work you need to be working. Free time is after work not during and doing personal things on the clock shouldn't be acceptable.
DeleteI also agree there is a fine line when "big brother" is involved. If its crucial to the safety of others or company I totally agree with it, yet employees with access to sensitive information should be monitored for misuse.
ReplyDeleteI think monitoring people with access to sensitive information should be highly monitored. It allows for accountability and that there aren't any mistakes or issues within the company.
DeleteMobile devices play into this as well. People can use their smart phone to get around some of the surveillance systems at work. It might be important for a company to look at their wireless network. Someone wanting to steal information could put it on their phone or I-pad and walk right out of the office.
ReplyDeleteI find the name "Little Brother" pretty funny, when it seems a lot more like Orwell's "Big Brother." Jokes aside, from personal experience, I feel like there is a reasonable allotment for using the computer for some sort of personal reason, whether it be quickly checking a personal email or the score for a sports team that is playing a game during work hours (working during March Madness is not fun). I feel like a 10-15 minute allotment of time for such things is not only reasonable, but could actually increase productivity.
ReplyDeleteThis could be true. I know that I read studies on allowing employees to take breaks to check facebook or other sites so that they have a break from what they are doing and when they return they feel re energized to finish their tasks. Such gray areas with this topic!
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