Cyberveillance: A Case Study in Workplace Productivity vs. Privacy
By J. Melody Murdock
Illustration by Jon Krause

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Anxious to bid on the camera you've been eyeing on eBay? You might want to think twice before doing it at work. Chances are every digital move you make is being recorded—yes, even your instant messages. "Is that fair or even legal?" you ask. For now, surveillance is lawful in the workplace, but whether it's an ethical intrusion of employee privacy is still much debated.

BACKGROUND:
Technological advancements have long threatened the right to privacy. When photography and the printing press became a privacy concern, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and attorney Samuel Warren noted 116 years ago: "It has been found necessary from time to time to define anew the exact nature and extent of such [privacy] protection."1 The already uneasy relationship between privacy and technology has become even more intense in the last decade. With the advent of the Internet, communication has never been more convenient—and tracking it has never been easier. Companies are quickly snatching up the newest cyberveillance software. Experts are not only wondering if they'll see a backlash from employees who want privacy and trust but also if business has once again reached a time when it's necessary to redefine the nature and extent of privacy protection.2

CURRENT SITUATION:
Employers are concerned about the increasing number of office hours being squandered online. And with statistics like these, why shouldn't they be? Forty-four percent of American workers consider web surfing their top workplace distraction, according to a recent study by Salary.com and America Online. The study revealed that employees spend an average of two work hours a day surfing the web, costing U.S. companies an estimated $759 billion a year in wasted salaries.3

With numbers like that, it isn't surprising that 76 percent of employers are now monitoring employees' web site connections, according to a report by the American Management Association (AMA) and the ePolicy Institute.4 Computer monitoring takes various forms including tracking content, keystrokes, keywords, and time spent at the keyboard. Most companies are tracking all of the these, and more than half are actually reviewing the data and storing it.

In addition to spyware software, many employers have developed or revamped their e-technology policies as a result of a growing concern about litigation and the role of electronic evidence in lawsuits. The AMA report shows a majority of companies have email and Internet usage policies, nearly half have instant messenger policies, and one-third have blogging policies. But despite the increase in policies and the fact that most companies tell employees they are being monitored, at least twenty-five percent of employers have fired someone for misusing the Internet or email.

GLOBAL BANKING LTD. CASE:
This is a hypothetical case study developed by Marriott School Professor Jeffrey A. Thompson and colleagues.5

Global Banking Ltd. is a one-hundred-year-old American company with offices worldwide. Specializing in retail banking and financial services, Global is a well-managed, relatively fast-paced bank with a culture that inspires employee loyalty and trust. In the most recent fiscal year, the company reported assets in excess of $50 billion. Global credits their success to their utilization of the best people and technology in the world.

Bank executives are considering installing software on their global intranet that will monitor every employee's computer activity, both online and offline. In essence, they would be monitoring every message sent, every web site visited, every file formatted, and every key stroked, even if the employee never stored the data. The bank wants to know if installing the software will prove to be a productivity booster or a morale buster.

OPTION 1:
GAUGE EMPLOYEE RESPONSE, THEN PROCEED ACCORDINGLY
Before making a decision about installing surveillance software, Global could conduct a survey to gauge how their employees would respond to being monitored. Because Global has offices in regions around the world, this approach could be especially useful to get an idea how individual cultures would react to cyberveillance. However, Global should only choose this option if they are willing to proceed in either direction according to the responses they receive. The following memo is an example of how CEO B. J. Murphy could approach this issue:

To: Geographic division managers
From: B. J. Murphy
Re: Monitoring software

Recently, I saw a survey by the American Management Association that reported increasing corporate use of sanctions against violators of their rules on computer use. Twenty-six percent of the companies surveyed said they have dismissed employees for misuse or personal use of telecommunications equipment. Almost three-quarters of U.S. companies now have monitoring software.

While I am not an alarmist, nor do I believe that we have a serious problem at this time, I have spoken with representatives of several firms that make monitoring software a practice. They assure me that it is quite easy to maintain. However, before I proceed, I wanted to get your reactions to installing this software. For example,

• How do you think employees in your culture will feel about being monitored?
• Should we tell employees we are doing this and, if so, what policy statement ideas do you have for presenting this to all employees?
• What about our company culture? Does this kind of surveillance damage our strong reputation for loyalty and trust?
• Would you recommend proceeding? And if so, how should we implement?