2. Measures Employers are
Taking to Monitor Employees
S This can both be beneficial and detrimental to the employee or
applicant.
S Employers retain and review employee emails.
S Employers use blocking internet software to restrict access to
certain sites. (Sinrod, 2005)
S Keystrokes and the time an employee is online is also
monitored.
S The work computer files of employees are stored and reviewed.
3. Percentage of Employer
Monitoring
S Per the 2005 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey
by the American Management Association and the
ePolicy Institute, 76% of employers monitor Web site
connections of employees. (Sinrod, 2005)
S The survey showed the following:
S 55% of surveyed employers retain and review emails
S 65% use Internet blocking software
4. Percentage of Employer
Monitoring (cont’d)
S 50% of the surveyed employers stated they store and
review employee emails. (Sinrod, 2005)
S From the survey it also shows that 80% of the surveyed
employers actually inform employees that content is
monitored.
S From a more current article from May, 2012, 60% of
corporations are expected to watch workers social media
use for security breaches by 2015. (Rashid, 2010)
5. Some Results To Hiring/Firing
Due To Employee Social
Media Interaction
S In an article posted by the New York Times, the Food and Drug
Administration led a surveillance operation against a group of
its own scientists.
S These scientists were let go due to the suspected belief of
leaking confidential information about the safety and design of
medical devices. (Litchblau, 2012)
S According to a Career Builder survey in 2009, 45% of
employers use social media sites like Facebook, MySpace,
Twitter, and LinkedIn to screen job applicants. (Rashid, 2010)
6. Some Results To Hiring/Firing
Due To Employee Social
Media Interaction
S In 2008, 2% of the employers surveyed in the same
Career Builder survey comprised of managers and
human resource personnel admitted to terminating
workers for content posted on these social media sites.
S It is important to recognize that employers do have valid
reasons for monitoring in certain instances; although the
foregoing statistics could cause employees to feel
paranoid. (Sinrod, 2005)
7. Is Monitoring Illegal? And to
What Extent?
S Yes or No? You decide.
S Privacy or Intrusion upon a party’s seclusion or solitude is a tort
and it’s not difficult to imagine how such a cause of action
might arise in the employer poking around online and digging
up information on an employee or perspective employee.
S The National Labor Relations Act protects the position that
discussing work conditions with other employees via a social
media site. To expand, The US National Labor Relations Board
in several recent decisions, ruled against employers who fired
workers for complaining on social media sites. (Grant, 2012)
8. Is Monitoring Illegal and To
What Extent?
S Although monitoring can help some companies avoid
security problems such as employees posting
unauthorized videos of company activities, there are
other times when accessing the information can generate
serious liabilities. (Gartner, 2012)
S Such an example would be a manager reviewing an
employee’s Facebook profile to determine the
employee’s religion or sexual orientation in violation of
the equal employment opportunity and privacy
regulations.
9. Is Monitoring Illegal and To
What Extent?
S An employer’s examination of an employee’s or potential hire’s
social network sites may provide claims under employment
discrimination statutes if the employer used such methods of off-
resume information-seeking to seek out information about the
employee that was legally protected in some way. (Gartner, 2012)
S Traditionally, monitoring has been limited to company, proprietary
email accounts, in which courts have routinely held that an
employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy. (Echols)
S At the same time, web-based accounts may not isolate an
employer from liability: most companies seek the ability to monitor
web-based, personal e-mail accounts as well.
10. Conclusion/Perspective/
Suggestions
S Nevertheless, this creates controversy between the employer and the employee.
S There is no doubt that the growth of social networking has created a paradigm shift
for organizational security monitoring.
S An employer favors monitoring whenever it faces potential liability because of
actions of its employees. Conversely, an employer favors privacy when it cannot be
held liable for the actions of its employees.
S With the proliferation of e-mail in the workplace, an emerging body of case law that
grapple with the issue of employee privacy has developed. (i.e. Smyth v. Pillsbury
Company) (Echols)
11. Conclusion/Perspective/
Suggestions
S With services readily available for employers, it is even
more important to understand that there are legal
consequences to having personal information on their job
candidate at their fingertips, to the unthinkable extent.
(Rashid, 2010)
S For employees, err on the side of caution and do not put
anything up online that you do not want prospective
employees to see.
12. References
S
S Echols, M. "Striking a Balance Between Employer Business Interests and Employee
Privacy...” retrieved from https://www.evernote.com/shard/s224/sh/c10e8e99-1386-4dfb-
b973-80b254b5fb0d/0fb9fb900a2b4a9cc09f2d2e05773dea/res/c60d67b5-f69c-4dee-ae36-
a5456f5e3c50/Echols%20Workplace%20Privacy.pdf
S Grant, G., May 29. Gartner Predicts Huge Rise in Monitoring of Employees' Social Media.
– retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/printablearticle/id,256420/printable.html
S Lichtblau, Eric. 2012, July 12. NY Times. Vast F.D.A. Effort Tracked E-Mails of Its
Scientists
S Rashid, Huma. 2010, March 30. Employers Using Social Media to Monitor Employees:
Risks and Liability
S Sinrod, Eric. 2005, June 1. USA Today. Employer monitoring: It's a small world after all
S Zieminski v. TBG Insurance Services, Inc., No. B153400 (Cal. Super. Ct.,
2002)http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1040521.html
S Helpful hints for Self Certifying Safe
Harborhttp://export.gov/safeharbor/eu/eg_main_018495.asp.
