I had a really interesting discussion with my students during class this week about employers’ use of electronic means to monitor employees. When I first started teaching Privacy Law at Roger Williams Law School eight or nine years ago (time flies!), the section on workplace privacy was so brief that I had to combine that subject matter with another to fill the class time. The reason was because, back in the day, there were few laws relevant to employees’ privacy in the workplace, as most employment in the U.S. is “at will,” and employees, in general, don’t have an expectation of privacy in the workplace (with a few obvious exceptions).
That tide is changing, which was very evident during the class discussion this week. In general, companies have always had the right to monitor employees while in the work place, including as technology advanced, and most employees understand that their employers are monitoring their use of company computers, phones, and key cards. With a more hybrid workforce, employers monitor when employees come into the office, when they log into the VPN, monitor email traffic and can prevent employees from accessing websites that are deemed inappropriate. Employees for the most part are aware of this type of monitoring and do not believe it is intrusive.
But when you start talking about keystroke technology, collection of biometric information, and geolocation monitoring, my students pushed back and the discussion became lively. They found this type of...
Dr. Natalia Krasovkaya, director of the National Center for Public Diplomacy (CND), has recently circulated in online publications accusing her of involvement in recruiting African nationals for t...