Employee Privacy Rights Research Articles

An Empirical Assessment of the Intrusiveness and Reasonableness of Emerging Work Surveillance Technologies in the Public Sector

AbstractAs public sector work environments continue to embrace the digital governance revolution, questions of work surveillance practices and its relationship to performance management continue to evolve, but even more dramatically in the contemporary period of many public servants being forced to shift to remote work from home in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. This article presents the results of three surveys, two of them population‐based survey experiments, all conducted during the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Canada that compare public servant (n = 346) and citizen (n = 1,008 phone; n = 2,001 web) attitudes to various cutting‐edge—though no doubt controversial among some—digital surveillance tools that can be used in the public sector to monitor employee work patterns, often targeted toward remote working conditions. The findings represent data that can help governments and public service associations navigate difficult questions of reasonable privacy intrusions in an increasing digitally connected workforce.Evidence for Practice New work surveillance technologies are available to use within the public sector and will present acceptability challenges to public managers as they contemplate the introduction of these technologies. Multimodal survey data from Canada reveals that public servants and citizens find these emerging work surveillance technologies to be quite intrusive and unreasonable but show relatively more tolerance for digital surveillance over physical surveillance practices. Understanding surveillance anxieties among targeted employees will be key to finding a balance between employee privacy rights and employer desires to manage employees in a remote or digital environment.

Covert monitoring versus employee privacy rights

There are various reasons why monitoring in the workplace occurs: to avoid misconduct or to detect criminal activities or abuse. However, when covert monitoring is employed, there is a chance that privacy law is being violated. Mark Stevens explains

Thinking Slow About Abercrombie & Fitch: Straightening out the Judicial Confusion in the Lower Courts

In Abercrombie & Fitch, the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed the way that Title VII religious accommodation cases are litigated and evaluated. This paper analyzes Abercrombie, explains how the Court eliminated religious accommodation as a freestanding cause of action, and suggests an altered proof framework for plaintiffs seeking an accommodation. The paper also explores the conflict between employee privacy rights and classic proof requirements for religious sincerity. The lower courts have largely failed to apprehend the change mandated by Abercrombie, with the result that their opinions are in disarray. The paper includes a chart organizing the diverse lower court opinions.

The Times They are A-Changin': Shifting Social Norms and Employee Privacy in the Technological Era

When it comes to employee privacy rights in emerging technologies, the times they are a changin.’ In the dawn of the modern technological era, when electronic mail and the Internet were in their relative infancy, the right to privacy meant almost nothing in the workplace. Employers could promise that e-mail would not be monitored, but then proceed to do so anyway. When employees sued, seeking vindication of their perceived privacy rights, courts cast aside any notion that an employee could expect privacy in the workplace, and they did so almost uniformly. The tide, however, appears to be turning. Judicial decisions rendered in more recent years, coupled with comparable statutory reform initiatives, suggest that as social norms shift in light of the rapid development and mainstreaming of modern technologies, the law is affording protection to employees that previously did not exist. This Article takes a retrospective-comparative approach to this turning tide, delving deeply into the law of the early era of modern technology, and juxtaposing it against more recent developments. The result is exposition of an unmistakable trend favoring employee rights. This Article therefore tackles head-on the ultra-modern legal problem of workplace privacy rights in emerging technologies, but it does so in novel ways, as the first to suggest that the trend is shifting toward greater recognition of employee rights at the expense of employer prerogative.

Applying the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in the Workplace: Struggling to Keep Pace with Paradigm Shifts in Technology

What are the legal boundaries of an employee’s privacy in this interconnected, electronic-communication age, one in which thoughts and ideas that would have been spoken personally and privately in ages past are now instantly sent to friends and family via computer? This paper analyzes employee privacy rights in light of modern work-related monitoring and surveillance technologies and practices and the possible application of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to those monitoring practices. The analysis in this paper demonstrates that employees have minimal work-related privacy rights. While the ECPA may provide some privacy protections for employees, due to rapid changes in technology, the extent of privacy protections are unclear and in flux. Until the ECPA can be modernized to take into account twenty-first century technologies, there will be no clear boundaries for employee privacy.

“Prudence counsels caution”: The Supreme Court leaves open more questions than it answers on employee privacy rights in the digital age

Employment Relations TodayVolume 37, Issue 3 p. 77-83 Key Court Cases “Prudence counsels caution”: The Supreme Court leaves open more questions than it answers on employee privacy rights in the digital age Harold M. Brody, Harold M. Brody hbrody@proskauer.com Proskauer Rose LLPSearch for more papers by this authorMatthew A. Jackson, Matthew A. Jackson mjackson@proskauer.com Proskauer Rose LLPSearch for more papers by this author Harold M. Brody, Harold M. Brody hbrody@proskauer.com Proskauer Rose LLPSearch for more papers by this authorMatthew A. Jackson, Matthew A. Jackson mjackson@proskauer.com Proskauer Rose LLPSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 October 2010 https://doi.org/10.1002/ert.20312AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume37, Issue3Autumn (Fall) 2010Pages 77-83 RelatedInformation

Two students and a professor discover what every business person should know about Industrial Security Firms

Data theft has been a growing global problem for employers for many years. Studies have long recognised that the weakest link regarding corporate theft is company employees. This paper looks at the use of Industrial Security Firms (ISFs) to catch thieving employees and protect companies from future theft. The authors describe the basic functions of ISFs and explain the legal and technical methods that are used by such firms. The authors also discuss employee privacy rights and use a film and case study to emphasise the basic points of the paper.

Balancing Employer Policies and Employee Rights: The Role of Legislation in Addressing Workplace Alcohol and Drug Testing Programs

Workplace alcohol and drug policies create tension between employer safety interests and employee privacy rights. Despite numerous legal challenges, the appropriate balance between employer and employee interests has not yet been decided. This lack of clarity is apparent in the various policies of employers, human rights commissions, and the rights asserted by affected employees. The article examines “model” policies of the petroleum and construction sectors and analyzes jurisprudence surrounding various forms of alcohol and drug testing, keeping the distinction between union and non-union approaches. It points to a lack of cohesion in jurisprudence and alcohol and drug testing policy models, and urges the implementation of legislation for greater certainty in the field.

No Place to Play: Current Employee Privacy Rights in Social Networking Sites

No Place to Play: Current Employee Privacy Rights in Social Networking Sites

Privacy in electronic communication: Watch your e-mail: Your boss is snooping!

As use of information technology increases, there has been an upsurge in the way that people can access and deal with personal data, particularly in electronic format and over electronic communications system. A whole world of electronic monitoring continues to grow rapidly with the increasing amounts of technology. In every electronic communication, an Internet user gives away some form of personal information. As individuals engage in routine online transactions, they leave behind a trail of personal details, often without any idea that they are doing so. The Internet is not yet a secure medium over which to communicate personal information without having due consideration of the risks and legal issues involved. The rapid growth and increasing use of the Internet give rise to many and complex privacy issues. Questions arise as to what are employee's privacy rights when using the office e-mail system for personal or non-work related use and the employer's responsibility in ensuring that the company's e-mail system or Internet is not abused. Employees are worried about privacy and the employer's increasing use of software to read, intercept and monitor employee's electronic e-mail or Internet usage. In many cases workplace monitoring can seriously compromise the privacy and dignity of employees. Surveillance techniques can be used to harass, discriminate and to create unhealthy dynamics in the workplace. In general, US courts are not easily persuaded that e-mail snooping by employers constitutes an invasion of the employee's legitimate expectations of privacy in the workplace, given the employer's ownership of the e-mail system. On the other hand, although EU law is clear that e-mail interception is illegal, the law is not totally clear as to whether companies may prohibit employees from sending private e-mails. Corporate IT usage is still a legal grey area.

USING HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORK SYSTEMS TO SUPPORT INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS AND DECREASE EMPLOYEE TELECOMMUNICATION VIOLATIONS IN THE WORKPLACE

In the United States, organizations can be held legally liable when their employees create conditions for a hostile work environment by operating telecommunication systems for personal use in the workplace. Conventionally, many organizations implement acceptable telecommunication usage policies and electronic surveillance to prevent harassing situations from occurring and to protect themselves against costly liability lawsuits. However, these authoritarian methods have been criticized because of the apparent trade-offs they cause among employee privacy rights, productivity, and the need to safeguard the firm from harassment lawsuits. As an alternative approach, our analysis shows that the development of a High-Performance Work System (HPWS) will lower employees’ propensity to misuse telecommunication systems in the workplace, resulting in the reduction of employee rights lawsuits for the firm. Our analysis indicates that a HPWS creates a work environment that ensures telecommunication systems will be properly used and employees will not have to relinquish their expectation of privacy. We argue that organizations that manage their telecommunication systems by HPWS practices rather than bureaucratically controlling them will be in a better position to overcome the legal inadequacies of authoritarian methods.

Privacy, technology, and conflict: Emerging issues and action in workplace privacy

IV. Conclusion Growing employee awareness of the degree to which their personal privacy is compromised in the workplace, particularly with regards to information/telecommunicatton-system use and work monitoring, has created an organizational and political climate that may yield significant restrictions on employee monitoring and on how employers maintain and distribute employees’ personal information. While both federal and state governments have generally deferred to the right of the employer-as-owner to set conditions of employment that may include intrusions into employee privacy (Grodin, 1991), a number of statutory restrictions have been promulgated or proposed that will significantly expand employee privacy rights in the workplace. Additionally, it is probable that unions will aggressively assert employee privacy rights within the context of collective bargaining, potentially using employee dissatisfaction with privacy intrusions as a basis for organizing nonunion firms.

Le Droit du Salarié au Respect de Sa Vie Privée (Comparaison France/Etats-Unis)

The use of Internet by employees at the workplace involves risks both for the employer and the employees. As recent studies show, employees use their business computer to surf the web for personal purposes during the working hours. This lead to a supplemental cost for their employer. In addition, the networks are infested by viruses and business spies attracted by the data of the company for different reasons. Considering the risks, the employer has legitimate interests in monitoring his employees during the working hours but the use of poweful monitoring programs results in a high risk of invasion of employee's privacy. In the USA, constitutional and common law doctrines provide protection for employee privacy right. In France, employee's privacy right are ensured both by the 1950 treaty of the European Council, the Constitution and the civil code. Although both the USA and France protect employee's privacy rights at the workplace by similar rules, French and American courts have adopted opposite views on the subject of employee's privacy right at the workplace. This essay aims at comparing the differences between the French and US system of laws in balancing the employers' interest versus that of the employee.

New protections in employee privacy rights regarding usage and disclosure of social security numbers

New protections in employee privacy rights regarding usage and disclosure of social security numbers

Electronic Monitoring to Promote National Security Impacts Workplace Privacy

This paper explores electronic workplace monitoring in light of the USA PATRIOT Act—federal legislation with a national security focus that expands the likelihood of electronic workplace monitoring to assist government investigators. The paper examines federal laws that cover the privacy rights of at-will employees in the context of electronic workplace monitoring, including recent cases that have narrowed employee privacy rights. The paper argues that business justifications for electronic workplace monitoring have been bolstered by national security concerns, resulting in decreased expectations of privacy in the workplace for at-will employees. There are persuasive arguments that employers should exercise restraint in the use of information obtained through electronic monitoring in discipline and discharge decisions related to at-will employees. These arguments in favor of exercising restraint flow from the text of the USA PATRIOT Act and consider the risk of discrimination lawsuits.

Employee Privacy Rights Challenge Employer Screening Techniques for The 1990s

Employee Privacy Rights Challenge Employer Screening Techniques for The 1990s

Employer Rights, Employee Privacy and Aids: Legal Implications To Hospitality Industry Managers

This study looks at the employment issues of AIDS, employer rights, employee privacy rights and how those views relate to management's opinions on the discharge of and refusal to hire AIDS victims. The results indicate a strong understanding, on the part of one hospitality management group, of the legal constraints affecting their employment rights in the areas of collective bargaining, sex, race and religious discrimination, as well as a strong and positive correlation between such legal constraints and acknowledgement of an employee right to privacy in all areas with the exception of AIDS disclosure. The results suggest a continued misunderstanding of the disease and the inclination to view the AIDS victim as a threat to co-workers and the food operation itself.

Employee Privacy Rights: A Management Guide.

Employee Privacy Rights: A Management Guide.

Book Review: Labor and Employment Law: Employee Privacy Rights: A Management Guide

Book Review: Labor and Employment Law: Employee Privacy Rights: A Management Guide