Suck it Up, Junior Mint: Your Employer Has Every Right Monitor Your Communications
About once a year a news story comes out how employers monitoring employees communications on phones, email, web, whatever. There's also a predictable backlash about the invasion of privacy, mistrust, and so on. Privacy advocates claim your communications should be sacrosanct no matter what. Employers beg to differ. In an ideal world, employees would act responsibly and not put their employers at risk (for example, initiating a "sexualy charged workplace" because someone is viewing porn) or wasting company resources (employee time, really) goofing off on-line rather than working. In an ideal world, employers would trust employees to do their work knowing that sometimes employees need to take a break or blow off steam.
I'm sure we'd love to live in that ideal world of mutual trust and responsibility but we live in the real world where the actions of a few impact the many which ultimately leads to employer monitoring. Monitoring, by the way, is hardly new or unique to the Internet.
Don't like it? Tough shit.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has an extensive page on Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring along with citations to relevant cases upholding employers monitoring rights. In the U.S., monitoring is an accepted practice. The general principle is that employers can monitor communications, regardless of the medium, that originates or traverses its equipment. In some cases, employers have to stop monitoring if they determine the communication is private such as with a doctor or lawyer. Otherwise, it's fair game. Most employers have written policies stating they they may monitor employees communications. If you're really curious, contact a lawyer in your state to dig into the laws that apply to you.
About 7 years ago, I embarked on a journey to remove all personal use of company owned equipment. As a home worker, I didn't have to worry about the network; just the laptop and VoIP phone that was provided as well as email. I made a clean break and you know what? It's not that hard.
I spent about a year getting friends and family to stop sending me email to my work address.
I changed the contact address for any personal Internet site to a private address.
I told friends and family to not call my work number.
I don't accept work email in my personal email account even when our mail server tanks.
I don't do any personal web browsing on my company laptop. If I travel with it, I bring a tablet to surf with.
When I'm in the office, I don't casually surf the web over their Wi-Fi network. I use mobile data or nothing at all.
The only time I cross the work/personal line is that I get work email on my personal smart phone when traveling. If my current or future employer ever enacts a policy that states they can wipe or access my personal device because I receive email (like my last employer did), I'll promptly stop doing so.
You and I may agree or disagree about the rightness or wrongness about monitoring--and frankly I am simultaneously appalled that employers monitor employees and understand why employers monitoring employees--but employers can monitor communications so act as if they are and keep your personal and work habits separate.
