Question

• Why are workplace privacy concerns more important today than they were ten years ago?
• What laws are in place to address workplace privacy?
• Who has more rights with respect to workplace privacy, the employee or the employer?

Answer 1

The increased use of technology in the workplace has created new concerns for both employers and employees in the area of privacy. The reasons for the vast expansion in the use of technology in the workplace are far from surprising. Use of email and the Internet can immensely reduce operating costs through automation of human tasks, facilitate communication on innumerable levels, clearly increase efficiency in almost all tasks, allow for geographic and other business expansion, and less obviously, it can even reduce the amount of real estate and inventory that companies require. Hence most employees, as opposed to ten years ago, now have access to email, and Internet access in the workplace has also exploded.

2. What laws are in place to address workplace privacy?

The Electronics Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) places some limitations on an employer's right to monitor its employees' telephone usage at work.

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)

Stored Communications Act (SCA)

3. Who has more rights with respect to workplace privacy, the employee or the employer?

Most U.S.-based employees assume they have a constitutional right to privacy. However, constitutional rights to privacy are generally inferred through the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment’s rights to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. These freedoms usually apply only to state actions. In an employment context, state actions are fairly narrowly limited to protecting federal, state, and municipal employees. Private-sector employees must look elsewhere for protection. Possible sources for such protection from employer snooping include federal legislation and state common law tort actions such as invasion of privacy. The ECPA covers this but there are certai exemptions under the ECPA. For example, “ordinary course of business” which the employer may monitor employee communications to ensure such legitimate business objectives as assuring quality control, preventing sexual harassment, and preventing unauthorized use of equipment, such as excessive telephone or email usage.