This has created a new challenge for employers and created a series of legal and ethical questions that have yet to be fully addressed, remedied, or even commonly identified In the old days, say 1992, an employee abusing the company telephone for personal use was easy to discern and correct. An employer could circulate a general warning so as not to single out the loquacious offender, or if the transgression was particular egregious, a private conversation with the boss would ensue. Subsequent compliance with policy was readily recognizable, but never was the privacy of the employee invaded as the contents of the conversations in question were neither requested nor revealed. Unlike the phone, it is not always apparent when an employee is abusing email for personal use in the workplace. But an observant employer does recognize when productivity is inexplicably low for a particular employee, and clearly there must be remedy as the employer is paying the employee to conduct company, not personal, business through email.
Employers have statutory freedom to invade an employee s cyber-privacy.
The Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 allows for collection of information on a transaction, although not collection of the contents. Employees are nearly defenseless to an employer s e-peeking at work even when such surveillance would be illegal in other circumstances. But as with any business issue, there is a difference between legal rights and restrictions and ethical business practice. In the case of email privacy, it seems that legality and ethics converge and diverge at the same spot. If an employee were abusing the phone system, it would be illegal to tap the line.