Employees spend an average of one to two hours a day on personal internet use at work, ranging from innocent activities like shopping to accessing pornographic sites. Employers use surveillance technology to monitor internet usage, including internet and desktop surveillance. Privacy rights do not always apply to workplace surveillance, but employers should provide notice. Legal issues have arisen from workplace surveillance, but most rulings favor employers. Ultimately, proper use of the internet at work is the employee’s responsibility.
Most of us would find it difficult to deny the use of the Internet at work for non-work related purposes. With sites like YouTube, eBay and Facebook and access to instant messaging and email tempting us at all times, it can be hard to resist personal internet use at work. While not all people have access to the internet at work, the majority do. As evidenced by various surveys and studies conducted by media research firms, including Nielson, Burst Media and eMarketer, workers who have access are using it.
According to study surveys, the average employee spends one to two hours a day using the Internet for personal reasons. Usage ranges widely from accessing pornographic and gambling sites to playing games and instant messaging friends and colleagues. People have also reported using the Internet at work to do more innocent, but still personal activities, like shopping and banking. The reasoning many give about using the Internet at work ranges from lack of access at home or a faster connection at work to accessing the Internet out of boredom.
Whatever the reasoning and whatever the task, employers are not happy when their employees waste time and money doing non-work activities online. Most people would feel the same way if they were an entrepreneur, but company values aside, sometimes the temptation to surf is too great to resist. As a result, a vast number of employers have turned to surveillance technology to monitor their employees’ Internet usage at work.
While many people choose to discuss the ethics of employer surveillance, it’s still an interesting concept. With modern technology, some of which is identical to that used by malicious hackers, it is possible for employers to closely monitor the Internet use of all their employees right down to keystrokes. While how much or how little an employer chooses to monitor depends on the specific employer, there are basically only a few main ways to set up workplace surveillance and monitor internet usage in the workplace.
Internet surveillance and desktop surveillance are the two basic types of employer monitoring. Internet surveillance is the active monitoring of a user’s online activity. A network analyzer, commonly referred to as a packet sniffer, is an example of Internet surveillance. Packet sniffers are commonly used by computer network administrators for diagnostic testing and troubleshooting of network functions, but these programs can be set up like spyware to view and capture all the information passing on network connections.
With this type of program, employers can monitor their employees’ Internet usage in the workplace, including website visits, specific page views, emails sent, and information contained in emails. mail, as well as downloads and streaming of audio and video events. This type of surveillance allows employers to determine how much time an employee spends online and whether they are viewing material or engaging in activities that are inappropriate for the job.
Desktop surveillance is another form of computer surveillance, but it involves physical monitoring of a specific computer and every action taken by its user. Desktop monitoring allows an employer’s computer to intercept signals emitted by an employee’s computer through the use of software installed directly on the employee’s machine. Desktop surveillance software can be installed remotely or directly.
Like Internet surveillance, desktop surveillance also effectively allows employers to read e-mail and monitor all open programs or files on employees’ computers, but also monitors offline computer use. Typically, the system administrator is responsible for monitoring information gathered by desktop surveillance. Unlike malicious hackers, a company’s system administrator can simply be told to look for very specific actions, such as inappropriate viewing of websites, or can even use an alert system that sends an alert when material or inappropriate text rather than participating in constant monitoring.
While many employers find the costs associated with cyber surveillance worth it compared to the financial loss of lost time, some companies find it necessary to reduce the cost of the technology and choose not to use surveillance software. That doesn’t mean they don’t monitor their employees’ Internet usage. Instead, they simply make use of the technology already at their disposal.
In many companies, all employee computers are connected to the system administrator’s computer. This allows the system administrator to gain remote access to an employee’s computer, which is very useful when a problem occurs within a specific program or operation. However, remote access also allows the system administrator to check log files, including e-mail messages, website visits, and even downloads, which the user may think has been deleted or deleted. This means that even though a downloaded song may have been transferred to your mp3 player and all twelve of your best friend’s emails have been deleted, your boss may still know how you spent your day if the system administrator checks the files log after you go home .
Regardless of the type of monitoring or surveillance an employer uses to keep tabs on their employees’ Internet usage at work, it might interest you to know that privacy rights don’t always apply to workplace surveillance. Ethically speaking, an employer should advise in one form or another if computer use is being monitored. In fact, most employers provide that notice, direct or implied. Direct notice as a posted sign is obvious. While implied monitoring isn’t really a formal warning, it’s safe to assume that if an employer has limited Internet access or has system administrators with remote access, their computer use is likely being monitored.
As for your legal rights, current US laws prohibit employers from intercepting email while it’s in transit, not reading it before it’s sent or once it’s received. The law also prohibits the collection of personal information such as bank account and credit card information. While legal issues have arisen from workplace surveillance, most final rulings favor employers because they have the right to protect their business, which is considered their property. An employer has the right to reprimand an employee for inappropriate or abusive use of the Internet.
Ultimately, proper use of the Internet at work is the employee’s responsibility. Just as they allow for the occasional personal phone call, most employers don’t scoff at the occasional personal email. In fact, they may prefer a few emails throughout the day to a few phone calls because they take up less time. However, if it is obvious that a worker spends more time browsing online retailers, watching videos and sharing jokes than performing their job duties, they may find themselves wishing they had spent some of their time checking out job boards .
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