Post 6: E-monitoring, Regulation, & Privacy

Seeing as how I accidentally thought that the RF13 was due this week, I practically read all of the material so now I can blog about it.

The coupling of privacy and technology has been a long standing issue. This seems the become more and more relevant as technology advances, especially in the workplace. Nord, McCubbins, and Nord (2006) state that, "workplace monitoring has existed for a long time...and will continue to...become increasingly sophisticated as technology advances" and this causes concern for employees everywhere due to the fact that a level of privacy is expected to provided. Of course with more and more employees conducting non-work related acts it is practically standard procedure for employers to implement monitoring and blocking software. Blocking certain content and sites from work computers seems to pose no harm but it's when we start talking about monitoring employee computers where problems start to arise. However, if you're at work then you should be following policies and procedures, and you should be doing work, not browsing around shopping, playing games, paying bills, etc.

It almost seems too simple not to follow these rules, guidelines if you will. When you're at work you can expect some privacy but you're at work so you're under the jurisdiction of your employer. I'm not saying that employers can do whatever they want and put surveillance cameras in the restrooms, but each side of the line should follow the policies and procedures set forth, and if there isn't any for any one side then action should be taken.

Nord, D. G., McCubbins, T. F., & Nord, J. H. (2006). Privacy, legislation, and surveillance software. Communications of the ACM, 49(8), 73-77.