Monitoring Employees

Factual Questions
1

Just a quick question - is it legal to monitor your employees (by video tape recording, etc)? They are currently doing this where I work and I thought there was some law against it, some privacy thing or something.

Can anybody help me out with links, info?

Thanks

2

Nope. It’s the company’s building and if they want to wire it full of hidden cameras and IR detectors, and set all the computers to flash red lights when you try to access the SDMB, that’s their right. They don’t even have to let you know that they’re doing it (which would of course defeat the purpose of a hidden camera).

“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”

3

It depends on the state.

In California, there is actually a constitutional right to privacy. It results in some protections that don’t exist elsewhere.

I would suggest looking it up on a Wisconsin database of case law.

4

In california, video is okay, audio is not. But then where you work, ask your employer if they are doing any recording. ATM’s have recordings, too. Video is everywhere but not the bathroom. Im in Calif, you’d be surprised how many stores have a video camera aimed at the cash register.

5

The reason I ask is because at the tech school computers were being stolen. So they set up cameras to catch thieves. However, they didn’t set up the cameras in the classrooms themselves because (to quote one instructor) “the union would have something to say about that”.

I do freelance computer repair for money, but I also keep a weekend job to keep some steady money coming in just in case I can’t get work during the week. Even though there’s no union, I figure if a union would have a problem, I should too.

6
      • There was a story on the news a few days back: at some store in the St Louis area, the women noticed one day a small hole over the toilet in the ladies’ restroom. They joked about it being a peephole, until one lady got up on a chair and found. . . a mini-video pinhole camera, and a wire that lead to the mamager’s office where a monitor sat on his desk. In court, the manager said he was doing it to watch for theft. The court said that it wasn’t covered under the wiretapping (or whatever) laws, because even though he was watching it, he wasn’t recording it. In this instance, that seems to be enough of a difference. - MC
7
      • Also as I heard it, a company is free to monitor their own phone lines without giving informed notice, but they cannot monitor pay phones that are within their property which are designated as “public phones”. LANs are company property and are likely monitored in some form; the bigger, the more likely -and- more extensively. I am astounded that people can be smart enough to hold CIS jobs and not know this. - MC
8

That sounds more like they won’t install cameras in the room because the maintance union (or whoever) would object to someone non-union doing their job. There’s millions of office stories about people not being allowed to move a filing cabinet or run a wire along the wall to a printer because it’s a union job.

In short, I’m not sure how much privacy laws have to do with it.

“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”

9

Whoops. I meant they wouldn’t install the cameras in the classrooms as opposed to the hallways because the teacher’s union would disapprove of the teachers (possibly) being monitored. Either way, the cameras are installed at school.