July 16, 2001—Fourteen million US employees—just over one-third of the online workforce in the United States—have their Internet or e-mail use under continuous surveillance at work, according to an analysis released July 9, 2001, by the Privacy Foundation. Worldwide, the number of employees under such surveillance is estimated at 27 million.
The foundation’s research indicates that the low cost of the technology is the main reason for the growth of e-mail and Internet surveillance in the workplace. Worldwide sales of employee-monitoring software are estimated at $140 million a year, or about $5.25 per monitored employee per year. Reasons given by employers in the past ranged from productivity concerns to liability for sexual harassment or other employee misbehavior online.
A key question raised by the research report is whether employers are giving employees sufficient notice of continuous Internet and e-mail monitoring. According to the report, employees are generally not told beforehand what information will be gathered and how it will be judged, even though employers are basing firing and suspension decisions on the monitoring reports.
In addition, employers may be putting themselves at risk by inadvertently stockpiling large amounts of potential evidence that could be used against them in future litigation. This is particularly significant in government offices, where such logs and reports may be considered public records and accessible under Freedom of Information Act requests.
The study was based on self-reported figures from publicly traded companies that sell e-mail and Internet monitoring software. Websense is the most frequently used Internet-monitoring product, and MIMEsweeper is the most frequently used e-mail-monitoring product. According to the vendors, purchasers of surveillance software include such top companies and government agencies as Marriott, American Express, Zenith Electronics, the US Army, and the City of Boston.
According to the Foundation, an important area for future study will be whether technological “convergence,” such as Internet telephony and digital video, fosters the same widespread monitoring of phone conversations, voice mail, and visible activities as Internet and e-mail use. For a summary of the report, or the full report, visit the Privacy Foundation.
