Big Brother is watching

By ADAM GIFFORD

As information technology becomes an increasingly important part of the way people work, privacy in the workplace is disappearing.

"Your boss is watching", is the message in a new book by former lawyer Frederick S. Lane, The Naked Employee: How technology is compromising workplace privacy.

Not only your boss, but fellow employees and outsiders can access email logs or video surveillance: "The security guards keep smirking at me" is the heading on one section on hidden cameras.

It starts even before the job begins. Many employers screen prospective employees, getting credit reports and requiring health checks, drug tests and personality tests.



Once in the job, employees may have to have their fingerprints recorded or undergo a retinal scan to get into their workplace. They routinely wear cards that monitor where they are in the building, or drive company cars with GPS trackers to monitor their whereabouts.

People have been sacked for criticising management in emails, visiting porn sites or spending too much time on the net for non-work-related activity.

These indiscretions can come to light months after they occur through an examination of log files or forensic sweeps of computers, as Auckland High Court judge Justice Robert Fisher can attest.

When it was found he had spent around 90 minutes viewing internet sex sites, there were calls for him to be sacked. He kept his job, but his reputation took a serious hit.

There are sound reasons why employers track work, despite the cost, time, and negative effect on employee morale.

A University of Florida study estimated that in 2001, retail employees stole 50 per cent more from businesses than customers did.

And last year a study by San Francisco-based Computer Security Institute and the FBI estimated between 70 and 80 per cent of computer crime is committed by employees against their employers.

That may include sending trade secrets or confidential data to outsiders. Many of the packet-screening tools used to keep viruses or spam out of corporate systems can also check whether such information is leaving the company in an unauthorised way.

Private use of work computers or phones also cuts into productivity. A poll by employment site Monster found half of British employees admitted to wasting time by surfing the net or chatting online while at work.

"From an employer's perspective, having unmonitored internet access on each desk is the equivalent of installing a gazillion-channel television set for each employee," Lane says.

Employers also risk being accused of creating a hostile work environment if they allow staff to exchange racist or sexist jokes by email, or access porn sites on company time.

Privacy Commissioner Bruce Slane says the rule of thumb in New Zealand is employers can use personal information only for the purpose it is collected.

"If someone is collecting information, they must tell the person they are doing that and the purpose for which the information is collected," Slane says. And people also have a right to access and correct that information.

Engineers Union general counsel Tony Wilton says people should be aware of their employer's email policies.

"If they get caught out breaching them, there is not a lot that can be done," Wilton says.

"There is a general feeling of unease about Big Brother snooping, but you must assume the employer is monitoring emails."

And he says technological monitoring does not replace personal supervision and management.

"Some employers or managers are looking for any kind of agent or element which increases their power, and those employers will calculatedly adopt technologies or policies designed to send a message to workers who is in charge here."