Big Brother Is Legally Watching an Insight Into Workplace...

Big Brother Is Legally Watching: An Insight Into Workplace Surveilance Abstract The paper is a brief insight into electronic surveillance in the workplace. It focuses on what video surveillance is; and what methods are used, such as monitoring phone usage, video surveillance, monitoring email, internet usage, GPS surveillance of company vehicles and cell phones; and why these methods are adopted within the workplace. It also focuses on the legal risk of electronic surveillance with the concerns of invasion of privacy and its effect on the of workplace protocol and guidelines. Big Brother Is Legally Watching: An insight in to Workplace Surveillance The development of technology has completely changed the manner in which†¦show more content†¦Almost fifteen percent of employers admitted to videotaping employee job performance and 35.3 percent to videotaping for security purposes (Barrett, 2008). Wachovia has bought various tools to monitor and document employee behavior and to spot and evaluate any criminal activity (Wolfe, 2008). Hannaford Bros. and Pathmark are using intelligent systems that interpret video images to identify employee theft and shoplifting (Garry, 2008). At many major casinos, trained security professionals are stationed in a video surveillance room closely observing the activity at the high-stakes gaming tables for hints of fraudulent behavior that would put the casino at risk. Mobile phones are also frequently used to gather location data. The geographical location of a mobile phone and the person carrying it can be determined through the GPS located whether it is being used or not. This is done th rough a technique known as mutilateration. Mutilateration calculates the differences in time for a signal to travel from the cell phone to each cell towers near the owner of the phone (Surveillance: Technology and Law, 2008). Businesses monitor data and traffic on the internet through computer surveillance. Another form of surveillance that is on the rise is monitoring social networks through social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter as well as from traffic analysis