Electronic Surveillance Of Employees

Running Head: Electronic Surveillance Of Employees

Electronic Surveillance of Employees
Cathy D. Brown
Professor:: Anne Dewey-Balzhiser
LEG500- Law, Ethics and Corporate Governance
Date: January 22, 2012

Introduction:

Some would say that workplace privacy rights are non-existent in the private sector.

Workplace surveillance is that employers have a legitimate right to conduct surveillance

for the benefit of themelves, the community at large for purpose such as detection of fraud

and other crimes, the defference of criminality, and in order to comply with laws such as

discrimination and defamation law. A employer can engage in electronic surveillance of its

employees to further protect his her company however, an employer shoud inform

employees that they are subject to monitoring perhaps by setting up a highly visible

surveillance system or distributing to all employees and job applicants copies of a

surveillance policy or both.

Research

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) is the only federal statute

that offers workers protections in communications privacy. ECPA prohibits the intentional

interception of electronic communications. Some may find that, the ECPA contains

loopholes that facilitate employee monitoring. Court found the company’s electronic

communications policy to be ambiguous and interpreted the ambiguity against employer. The court The policy stated that the company could be review any matters on the

company’s media systems and services at any time, and that all emails and communications

were not to be considered personal or private to employees. The court found the policy

disclosure of employee monitoring insufficient, because it did not inform employees that

the company stored and could retrieve copies of employees’ private web-based emails.

First,