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Electronic Surveillance of Employees
Professor Michael Hall
Law, Ethic, and Corporate Governance- LEG 500
November 1, 2011

Explain where an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the workplace. You may think your United States employee rights authorize you to have a privacy workplace. People are wrong because, according to workplace privacy studies, the odds were good that your employer was monitoring all your internet actions, including your web pages and chat rooms (Niznik, 2011). If your company policy does not state there is a workplace privacy policy, your employer may watch, listen, and read just about everything in workplace area. Employers have the right to protect their business, their finances, and all of their equipment. The American Management Association (AMA) conducted a study of 526 employers which most use some type of electronic surveillance of the employees (Niznik, 2011). Many employers will deny they use any type of electronic surveillance however; the odds are good that your employer has “the eye,” watching your every move at work. Employers are not required to provide workplace privacy because your employers own everything you use at work. Your employers own the computers you work on, the telephones you talk on and the buildings in which you work. There are only a few weak employee workplace privacy right laws that exist. Since there are so few workplace privacy laws, it is legal for “the eye” to spy on you without your consent or your awareness. The only time an employee should have privacy at work is when they are changing their clothes or using the bathroom. Surveillance should not be allowed when you are in a place where you will expose any of your body parts. Employees can retain privacy communication by using their own equipment, on their own time. Although employees’ workplace privacy rights laws

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