Worker Privacy: You Have None - The vast majority of U.S. employers monitor workers' internet use, a practice that goes almost completely unregulated. Here's a look at your privacy rights in the workplace. By Joanna Glasner. [Security Blanket]

According to another recent publication in Wired Online Magazine, there is an upcoming debate on the rights of businesses to track the internet and e-mail activities of their employers, whether or not they are “on the clock.” Many times, the employee may not even be aware that supervisors are reading their personal e-mails and monitoring their websurfing. In fact, only two states require that employees be notified if their actions are being tracked.

The idea that someone can be tracked by their employers without knowledge brings back another familiar question: where does the line of privacy end? When the national government is looking to investigate people that are a threat to national security, they are able to track their activities online and else where, but defense of the tracking is for the purpose of an accurate investigation. When someone is being tracked by their employers, and possibly fired for their actions while online, does this infringe on the privacy rights of the employee?

In my opinion, no. If an employee tries to avoid work or procrastinate, surf the web, e-mail friends while not completing their necessary duties at work, they should be fired. With the development of technologies to allow “play time” at work, there should be a certain amount of surveillance to prevent such actions. With modern computers and PDAs with interactive games, an employee can appear to be intently working on a project on their computer while actually shopping for socks online. The idea seems great to employees who don’t want to work, but for the company, there is a possibility of a huge drop in productivity if their employees spend hours surfing the web instead of working. If a company hires someone to fill a certain position or job, pays them for that job, and grants them access to the internet to complete that job, they should be held accountable for completing it to the best of their capacity.

I agree that companies should have the right to monitor the actions of their employees online – but only while the employee is on company time. If for some reason, the employee has to take work home and access certain company intranets or use company laptops, they should not be monitored. At that point, there is a certain amount of privacy that should be granted. Once the employee leaves company time or location, they are on their own personal time that they may or may not use as time to catch up on work. If they do choose to access work data off time, they should not be tracked and should not face consequences for personal use of computers, etc.

On the same principal, an employee should be allowed to blog or chat about their company freely while not on company time. While it may not be a wise decision to speak poorly about your company in any public forum, there is a certain amount of freedom of speech that should be considered. However, once again these blogs should not be posted while on company time.