Tracking and Monitoring Business, Privacy and Cell Phones

Businesses implement computer software that permits them to see what is on screen or stored in the employee computer terminals and hard disks. Businesses are able to observe Net usage including web-surfing and e-mail. Some programs block and filter content by keywords, phrases and categories.

A different computer monitoring method enables businesses to keep a record of how long an employee spends absent from the computer system or nonproductive time at the terminal. A keylogger records a user’s computer keyboard strokes including usernames and passwords. Advanced people who use computers could believe their monitored status and attempt to deploy anti-keylogger software programs on the computer. The ability to prevent people from installing apps or bypassing the keylogger’s functions is another important feature of surveillance applications. Other considerations include data storage, semi-automatic or fully automatic screenshots of the user’s desktop, document tracking and scheduled user access.

Monitoring programs can log enormous volumes of information. A badly designed reporting interface could make the most robust applications ineffective. Reporting methods should be simple to navigate. It is common for the program to have multiple built-in report features along with the capacity to carry out custom searches.

Is my supervisor permitted to see just what is on my terminal while I’m working? There might be some further protection under the law for employees in California provided particular statutes of that state. See the paper by Los Angeles lawyers John Caragozian and Donald Warner, Jr., called “Privacy Rights of Employees Using Workplace Computers in California,” published in 2000. However, a few managers do warn employees that monitoring takes place. This information could possibly be conveyed in memorandums, personnel hand books, union contracts, at meetings or on a sticker affixed to the computer. In many instances, workers find out about computer monitoring during a performance assessment when the information collected is used to evaluate the employee’s work.

Tracking and Monitoring Business, Privacy and Cell Phones