Employee privacy and electronic surveillance in the workplace

Ethics in Technology

There has been a rapidly increasing use of technology in the workplace, but while some technological advances have benefitted companies, other technologies have raised serious concerns about employee privacy.

Consequentialism and Privacy Abuses

One of the issues that arises often in the workplace when it comes to employee privacy and employer technological overreach is when employers use certain electronic surveillance practices (monitoring personal phone calls and voice messages) to basically eavesdrop on their employees (Findlaw). In fact personal privacy laws affirm that an employer may not monitor an employee's personal phone calls; albeit the company can monitor a personal call if the employee knows it is being monitored and agrees (Findlaw). One ethical theory that applies to this situation is the consequentialism, which posits that the consequence of an action determines its moral value.

One complicating aspect of this is that a manager may believe that it is moral from a business standpoint to monitor what workers are saying -- even their private conversations where, for example, the woman may be telling the childcare service she will be late picking up her child. The theory's weakness, if the company is basing its actions on consequentialism, is that it tends to undermines trust in other people while it justifies wrongful behavior. Ironically, that wrongful behavior could turn out to be a positive in terms of the consequences: say a manager learned by eavesdropping that an employee was planning to quit, hence the employee could be fired ahead of the planned departure.

Potential Solutions

As to the solution to this problem, short of some enterprising employee catching the company in the act and bringing appropriate legal charges against him, workers feeling harassed should understand the concepts of ethical relativism in a globalized world, That is, morality is only relative to the norms of one's culture (Velasquez, et al. 2000). To wit, the rightness or wrongness of an act is dependent upon the norms of the society (in this case, the organization). In fact some ethicists believe that one (in this case a company) must obey the norms, right or wrong, because to not follow those norms is immoral (Velasquez). So in a world where the marketplace is expanding due to globalization, a company will follow the norms of cutthroat business practices; however, a solution for an honest and moral employee can only be to find an alternative position with a more ethical company.

Summary

Workplaces are known -- or should be known by alert employees -- as places where the behaviors and spoken words of workers are being monitored. Whether those actions are legal or ethical is apparently up to the employer, but this paper has presented ethical theories that challenge a company's right to break the law and spy on workers. The watchword for workers is -- be aware and be discreet in your use of technologies.