Does Internet Privacy in the Workplace Still Exist?

We can discern from these poll results that nearly 1/3 of company time and internet resources are being frivolously wasted. Combine those findings with a PC World poll that found 1 in 5 companies has disciplined employees for inappropriate use of the internet, and you can see that internet privacy, and a company's right to snoop, are starting to become hot topics.

The issue of an individual's privacy is always a touchy one, and for years it seemed that privacy was protected and wasn't an issue in the workplace. But recently that once "given" right has come under assault. With the explosion of the internet, and its usage on the job, many new privacy issues have erupted.

"Technology is putting people into a terrain where they don't know what the ethics are. Regarding customers and privacy issues, the rules, regulations, and laws are going to lag. In the meantime there is a lot of risk, like costly litigation, or bad publicity, and companies should have some guidelines"

-Jo Ann Barefoot, Managing Director, KPMG Consulting

As we can see by the previously mentioned poll results, precious company time and resources are being taken advantage of. Add the fact that companies can be held responsible for what their employees do on the internet using company time and resources, and you have yourself the ingredients for a volatile situation. Making the subject even more sensitive is the other side of the coin, where there are possibilities of lawsuits stemming from information leaks during email and internet monitoring. If during the course of e-mail monitoring private information becomes public knowledge, and that knowledge has a negative impact on an individual, a lawsuit can arise, and the company can be sued. A situation like this pits the employer vs. the employee, and that is nothing but a lose-lose scenario. It's the individual company's responsibility to weigh the risks vs. the gains. Is the company willing to take on a risk of liability? Is it worth the cost in money and company morale?

"In the end I think creating an atmosphere of distrust is bad for business. I think how you treat your employees is a good indication of how you treat your clients and customers. People want to work for companies that are fair and ethical, and businesses that are fair and ethical. Technology has pushed a lot of ethics into gray areas in a short period of time, and we haven't caught up yet."

-Michael Hoffman, Executive Director, The Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College

Maybe the focus of this entire issue should turn to finding easier, less invasive ways to control internet resources. Gaining popularity with major companies are two programs that create time blocks where recreational web surfing is allowed, (with the exception of sex related sites, which are always blocked). For example, during lunch hours or breaks, the walls are removed and the web becomes available to the employee to surf freely. At the end of the allotted time, the web gets "roped off" again to allow access to only pre-designated sites. Surfcontrol and Websense are two products based on this idea.

So instead of logging and actually monitoring the surfing habits of employees, companies can simply block access to things they deem inappropriate for the workplace. No ones feelings are hurt, no ones privacy is invaded upon, and the company can assure itself that things are running as efficiently as possible.

This whole situation is relatively new, and it's going to take some time before all the lines are drawn, and a precedent is set. But hopefully more and more companies can lean toward less invasive control methods, and steer away from snooping on the very people they depend on to run the show.