Human resources executives responsible for workplace privacy often have little knowledge of the potential intrusiveness of technologies at work in their own companies, he said.
They rarely know what information is being collected by colleagues running company computer systems, he said.
"The executives that are responsible for privacy in the workplace are not fully aware of the extent of ... the surveillance activity that is conducted," he said.
Managers often work without guidelines about how to respond if surveillance reveals an employee behaving suspiciously, said Levin.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/07/10/privacy-workplace.html?print
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on July 11, 2006]
Note: http://www.cbc.ca/story...
Employers Spying On Canadian Workers, Study Suggests
Posted on Monday, July 10 at 11:48 by jensonjContributed By
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Think about it.
You are working in a building you do not own, or have any direct influence over.
You are using equipment you do not own, computers you do not own, networks you do not own, phones you do not own, and this list is for all intents and purposes endless.
If you are using company gear, a company network, or anything else owned by, or leased to, the company you work for, then as far as I am concerned you do not have a right to expect there to be any form of privacy rights attributed to you and whatever tools / devices you use.
If it's your own gear, HUGELY different story. But even then, you have to be careful what you say, write, or do.
Your communications privacy/security is your responsibilty, and NO ONE elses.
Why?
Because there is NO such thing as a foolproof electronic communications medium.
Anything modern can be hacked by someone who knows what they're doing.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
Not necessarily!
Who you associate with, live or reside and those that your family members associate with, the products they and you use, who you talk to, eat, drink, vote, vacation, stores you deal with, your religious affiliation and support there of, your health and that of your family members, attitudes and thoughts on a host of subjects, needs and wants, the list is endless could effect my Business directly or in directly and what about the proprietary information that you have in your head that could help my competitors or assist you by giving you the idea of a new invention that you may feel a desire to exclude me from but which we both know I OWN!
I have the right to protect my Business and my Business interests from you and those you know from costing me undo harm and financial loss. Also since I pay your wages and provide you the life style to which you are accustom too this information is rightfully mine to use and sell as I see fit!
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Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.
Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.
All I can say is "Oops, accidents happen", especially to employers who cheat their employees of both credit and rewards for ideas that make them as owners wealthy. An "accidently" lost data dvd at a coffeeshop, a "misplaced" password, or any other innocuous event is all it takes, and your competitors suddenly have what they need to make your business life a living hell.
If you live by the cheat, you die by the cheat.
Concerning idea and product development, you would have to prove that I got the idea from you or your proprietary "whatevers" to begin with, and that is not as easy a sell in court as you may want to believe. With the amount of information available online concerning virtually ANY subject you care to name, your job is for all intents and purposes impossible; and I'm sure the lawyers involved would be happy to drag the process out untill Hell froze over and got an NHL franchise.
And anyways, the legal provision for you to "own" any idea an employee comes up with during their tenure with you is legalized PIRACY and we both know it.
My ideas are not your commodity.
A smart individual would keep their personal projects absolutely secret just to keep them OUT of hands of thieving employers.
"Also since I pay your wages and provide you the life style to which you are accustom too this information is rightfully mine to use and sell as I see fit!"
No, it is not. If I choose to work for another company, I will work there. I may even work in an unrelated field and wait out the time specified in any contracts I have signed.
After that, it's my call.
If I am ethical, I will not use any data I have of your company against you before the time specified in the agreement.
If I am not, then you may be in serious trouble.
The best away to avoid the problem in the first place is to treat your employees well, and not like you own them.
Keeping your data safe is another, and any business owner foolish enough to go cheap, or not secure their data at all deserves whatever they get.
Your data IS your business, and if you don't protect it, don't come whining to me because you lost mission critical data due to your going cheap on security and proper back-up procedures.
But, as always:
1)you get what you pay for
2) you will reap the rewards of what you sow, especially if you treat people like livestock.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
<br />
Privacy concerns itself with the collection, use and disclosure of information. Information is a<br />
commodity that individuals, organizations and governments desire. As with all commodities,<br />
ownership is paramount in the determination of rights and responsibilities. If you cannot lay<br />
claim of ownership to information, then you cannot assert a right to protect, use or sell it. The<br />
right to claim an ownership interest over information has a long pedigree dating back to the<br />
origins of intellectual property law.<br />
<br />
Beware what you justify and believe as indicating legal ownership you may find you no longer have rights to anything.<br />
<br />
For more info;<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.asis-canada.org/downloads/PRIVACY_EMPL_INVESTIGATIONS.PDF">http://www.asis-canada.org/downloads/PRIVACY_EMPL_INVESTIGATIONS.PDF</a><p>---<br>Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.<br />
<br />
Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.<br />
Sad thing is that I, and I am certain you do as well, know employers whose devotion to the "bottom line" is so pronounced that they will cut corners, cheat their employees, lay off experienced personel, and outsource to the hilt just so they can salvage a defective business model.
One person of my aquaintance built a corporate database system, and was promised in a signed contract that they would also have support duties for the system they built.
After they company got the database set up and running smoothly, they promptly cut all ties to the builder of their database, and contracted support out to another company. Not only that, they refused to pay him the amount promised in the contract.
90 days later, their database "disappeared" entirely, taking mission critical information along with it.
The reason was that the designer/builder incorporated a nuke into the system they built so that if the it did not receive a specific command within 90 days the entire database system would destroy itself.
He also made sure all the backed up data was scrambled using an algorhythm that he alone knew.
From what I understand they begged him to fix the problem afterwards, which he did after being paid up front and in full for both the system and it's restoration.
It's a sad day when people have no choice but to take such measures just to have agreements honored, but there you go.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush