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Future Threat: The No-Privacy Workplace

What do Xerox, Dow Chemical, and the New York Times have in common? They've all fired employees for allegedly misusing company e-mail and Internet systems to distribute pornography or other inappropriate material. How did they know it was going on? They monitored their workers' online activities.

And studies show that workplace surveillance is a growing trend. According to a 2000 report by the American Management Association, 38 percent of the organizations it polled monitor employee e-mail messages. That's up from 27 percent in 1999. A stunning 54 percent monitor workers' Internet connections, the first time the AMA has asked that question.

Too much trouble? Virtually everyone agrees that companies have the right to monitor employees' online habits to ensure they do not misuse company time and equipment--provided they disclose the practice. But as workplace surveillance becomes ubiquitous, experts say, it may prove to be more trouble than it's worth.

In 1995, e-mail messages containing inappropriate jokes were used as evidence in a sexual-harassment claim against Chevron Corporation. The case's $2.2 million settlement prompted companies to monitor e-mail to avoid similar suits. But the door swings both ways.

"Sure, you can fire someone using electronic evidence; but a fired employee can turn around and use surveillance records against the company in a wrongful termination suit," says Richard M. Smith, chief technology officer for the Privacy Foundation.

Workplace surveillance can have other downsides. Carl Botan, a professor of communication at Purdue University and a member of Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, is studying whether employees who know they are being monitored are unhappier and less productive.

"How is [monitoring] going to impact a person's enthusiasm for coming in to work? How will it affect employee loyalty and turnover? These are issues that managers really need to think about," says Botan.

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