How To Achieve a Balance between Monitoring and Intruding Privacy in the Workplace?

Most employees are happy to have some form of video surveillance in the workplace. It helps keep the workplace and the employees safe. Different types of businesses may need different types of video surveillance systems. For instance, a store may include some form of covert video surveillance system. Providing the employees know about the video surveillance, and that it is necessary to ensure the security of the business, this will not in most cases provide a breach of privacy rights.

To ensure that privacy in the workplace is maintained, some following measures should be taken.

• The company should issue a privacy statement, showing what privacy rights the employees have and what information is considered confidential.
• The company should disclose any use of information and monitoring.
• Any video surveillance systems should be noticeable and not hidden.
• Employees should be notified of any video monitoring or other monitoring taking place in the workplace.
• An employee’s after-work hours should be considered private and no intrusion should be made on an employee’s personal life.
• Video cameras should not be placed in places where an employee has a right to expect some privacy.

Other Types of Monitoring at Work

Video surveillance is not the only type of monitoring that may be conducted in the workplace. Here are some of the other types of monitoring that may take place.

• Keystroke monitoring.
• Listening in and recording telephone calls.
• Obtaining a record of telephone calls made by an employer.
• Looking at emails sent and received by an employer.
• Monitoring internet activity.
• Monitoring an employee’s activities on the computer.
• Monitoring the amount of time that an employee spends at the computer terminal.

Like video surveillance, privacy issues need to be considered when conducting any monitoring of employees. Before conducting any form of monitoring, you should check your local laws and adhere to privacy practices (including video surveillance privacy practices). Monitoring can be very effective in the workplace, but privacy in the workplace still needs to be maintained.