Is monitoring employee’s internet usage moral?

*Employee Privacy

By: Brittany Tindall and Hannah Tyson

*Is it legal?

*Companies monitoring their employers email accounts/messages is completely legal, because they are using the companies equipment during company time.

*Most companies, have a contract in place that includes an email/monitoring policy that says they are allowed to do so.

*In 2002, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed and requires companies to monitor email usage.

* Should employers be required to tell employees when they are being

monitored?

*Monitoring employees accounts and internet usage is completely moral and justified, and the employer should not have to notify the employee.

*The company hires the employee to work, not play around on the internet and email friends and family and therefore should not be doing so anyway (notified or not).

* How much personal use of workplace computers should

employees be allowed?

*During work hours and on company time, personal use should not be allowed.

*Not only does it distract from the actual work at hand, but can also eventually get the company in trouble if the employee is doing anything wrong/illegal.

*Personal use should be done on personal time and a personal computer or device.

* Court cases/news stories

* Bourke v. Nissan Motor Corp

*A Nissan employee sent an explicit email while in the workplace and Nissan used it as an example in an employee training exercise. The employee claimed this to be an invasion of privacy. This claim, however, was rejected by the court who ruled that Nissan had the right to view the emails. Nissan had also made an email privacy policy, outlining that they would intercept and read emails.