Legal Compliance resolve ethical issues that arise from the intersection of Law, Compliance & Investigations

Ethics, law, and compliance

There is always a need to balance the individual's right to privacy with a government or business' right to investigate breaches of security, whether of a technical or non-technical matter. "New technologies make it possible for employers to monitor many aspects of their employees' jobs that "they could not previously, and "such monitoring is virtually unregulated. Therefore, unless company policy specifically states otherwise (and even this is not assured), your employer may listen, watch and read most of your workplace communication" (Fact Sheet 7, 2012, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse). Most companies take advantage of the fact that the law is on their side regarding workplace monitoring. "Of the 43% of companies that monitor e-mail, nearly three-fourths use technology to automatically monitor e-mail. And 28% of employers have fired workers for e-mail misuse" (Fact Sheet 7, 2012, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse). Employers monitor web-surfing and block specific websites to reduce...

For example, in the NJ case of Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc. (2010) the court found that "the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the use of a personal Web-based email account -- even though accessed from the employer's computer-where the use of such an account was not clearly covered by the company's policy and the emails contained a standard hallmark warning that the communications were personal, confidential, attorney-client communications" (Adams 2012). But in California, Holmes v. Petrovich Dev. Co. (2011) 191 the appellate court found in favor of the employer's right to monitor employee email, because the employee had been explicitly warned of the fact that her email correspondence from work would be monitored and the employer's computers "were to be used only…