Leg 500

Electronic Surveillance of Employees

Law, Ethics, and Corporate Governance

1. Explain where an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the workplace.

Where an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the workplace comes from a variety of sources, such as the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, state statutes and common law practices. It is also dependent upon rather the firm in question is public, private or operating under a collective bargaining agreement. All of these variables can place limits upon employer monitoring of staff or define privacy employee privacy guidelines. “The 4th Amendment protects citizens from “unreasonable searches” but it is only activated when the government is conducting the search; likewise, there is no constitutional protection against search or surveillance by private firms.” (Halbert, 2010).

Because of this fact a private firm employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the areas that are define within the Employee Handbook or within policies and procedures adopted or developed by the decision makers. The interpretation of the 4th Amendment in practice between public and private sector employees concerning privacy is minimal. For a public sector employee the government’s control of the property and equipment, along with any consent of the worker once informed of possible surveillance the expectation would come a balancing of the intrusion against the needs of the employer. The employee can also reasonably expect to have privacy in their medical records and genetic makeup.

2. In the office workplace there are typically two types of workspaces, an open area, in which there are several desks and where conversations can be overheard, or an enclosed office, in which – when the door is close – conversations cannot be heard and where one would expect virtually total privacy. Explain whether it makes a difference if an employee is in an open...