Unit 7: Workplace Privacy.

Workplace Privacy.

Employees generally have to give up some of their privacy while they are in their workplace, but how much they must do so can be a contentious issue. To mediate between employers and employees, there are organizations that have established how much is too much when it comes to undressing employees from their privacy. One of these organizations is the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU.

This institution states that many of the basic rights we take for granted are not protected when we go to work, and that the ACLU continues to fight for employee privacy by challenging how those rights are violated by employers through workplace surveillance, unwarranted drug testing, and “lifestyle discrimination.”

Employers have a legitimate interest in monitoring work to ensure efficiency and productivity. But employee surveillance often goes well beyond legitimate management concerns and becomes simple spying in furtherance of no legitimate business interest. Electronic monitoring of employees is an area where we have seen the emergence of especially intrusive and unprecedented levels of workplace surveillance.

Any monitoring of employees should be narrowly tailored in time, place, and manner, and it should be transparent to employees (unless the employer is conducting an investigation based on substantial evidence of misconduct). Even permitted intrusions should not be used in a way that creates an atmosphere of pervasive surveillance or intimidation.

In my particular case, once I worked for a company, which asked me to buy a laptop to be able to work for them. After buying the laptop with my own money, they wanted my to give them access to it and all my information at all times. They wanted to dictate how I used it and when I used it. I was really shocked because it was my laptop that I bought with my own money, but they wanted to control how and when I used it. Luckily, I could leave that job and find a better one where no one told me what to do. That's one example of how companies violate our privacy.