Compelling As The Employee's Rights To Privacy example essay topic

Right To Privacy The United States federal government should significantly increase protection of privacy in one or more of the following areas: employment, medical records, and consumer information. The question of workplace privacy is a tricky one; in order to come up with a workable solution, one must balance the separate, and often conflicting, needs and expectations of employers and employees. In this essay, three types of workplace privacy issues will be discussed: e-mail and other office communications, employee drug testing, and the use of background checks. E-mail has rapidly become a staple of the modern office. Currently, two-thirds of employees in medium and large companies in the United States now have Internet access, compared with fifteen percent only two years ago. The availability of e-mail allows for messages to be widely and rapidly distributed, improving efficiency and reducing cost.

In addition to being one of the components of the new workplace, e-mail is also the center of a hot privacy debate. Part of this is because, unlike regular mail, which is difficult to monitor, e-mail can be scanned with ease, allowing employers to engage in monitoring at an unprecedented rate, and raising the specter of a workplace free of privacy. As this relatively new technology gains ever increasing prevalence, certain questions arise, mainly, "How do we balance employee expectations of / right to privacy, with the rights of employers to observe employees to ensure quality, prevent leaks of proprietary information, and limit exposure to litigation?" Employers have a strong interest in monitoring the communications of their employees. Employees engaging in illegal acts, distributing proprietary information or sending sexually explicit or harassing e-mails are a serious threat and liability to the employer. For example, an employer can be held financially responsible for an employee's sexual harassment, as was the case in Burlington Industries, Inc. vs. Ellert. In this case, Burlington was held liable for damages incurred by an employee, even though no complaint had been filed regarding the harassment.

The court ruled that regardless of a complaint, an employer had a duty to investigate if there was a perceived culture of harassment. Obviously, in order to prevent lawsuits like this one, an employer should have the right to monitor office communications. Also, in situations regarding the commission of illegal acts, such as in Burlington vs. Ellert, or in the release of proprietary information, the employer has a right, and sometimes even a responsibility, to monitor employee communications. In these cases, the employer's rights can be equally compelling as the employee's rights to privacy. However, employees should be given some measure of privacy. Privacy, along with being a human right, facilitates the free creation and distribution of ideas.

If there were no private space within a company, it would most certainly have a chilling effect on the possibilities for free speech and creative thought. Employee monitoring programs also have less tangible negative effects. In companies that engage in particularly invasive types of surveillance, such as keystroke monitoring, employees have far greater reported stress levels, and are more venerable to other disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Also, employees have privacy protections based upon their reasonable expectations of privacy. For example, there is no question that it would be inappropriate for an employer to place video cameras in the employee changing area, as a reasonable person would find this type of monitoring highly offensive. Employers are increasingly using drug tests to screen potential employees and to monitor current ones.

There are good reasons for this. Employers fear loss of productivity, drug related illegal activity, and potential liability. In order to help prevent these possibilities, some employers require drug tests. Consistent, comprehensive and random drug tests can greatly reduce incidents of drug use at work, and save employers money, time, and fear of litigation. Even with those concerns in mind, some privacy advocates question workplace drug testing.

Drug testing, as it is currently used, cannot determine when the drugs were taken, and is sometimes inaccurate, confusing legal substances like poppyseed's and antihistamines with real drugs like heroin and speed. Also, drug tests can serve as a partial remedy to employee drug use, as employers rely on tests instead of attentive management and employee education programs. Furthermore, privacy concerns are raised when employees who have showed no signs of use are asked to take tests; it's almost as if there is a presumption of "guilty until proven innocent". Similarly to drug tests, background checks are used by employers eliminate potentially dangerous employees. For example, a day care center can find out if a potential employee has a history of child abuse, or a law enforcement agency can ensure that its officers have no previous criminal history. Credit checks can also be used to ensure that employees with access to large amounts of money have a good financial background.

Overall, background checks allow for employers to ensure that they hire only qualified employees, protecting both the company and the customer. Still, some privacy questions arise. Some employers request background and credit checks for all positions, even ones that don't involve children, security, or financial matters. Also, background checks can be inaccurate, and prospective employees can be unfairly denied positions unless the mistake is caught. Privacy questions are also raised when employers expand the depth of their searches, sometimes including psychological, polygraph and even medical record checks. The privacy of medical records is of growing concern.

Our medical history contains extremely sensitive information, and access to it should therefore be limited. However, certain parties, such as doctors, insurance providers, researchers, have an interest in obtaining and using our information. The challenge is to create policy or legislation that can balance the legitimate needs of health care and insurance providers with individual rights to privacy. There are reasons that medical information should be shared. In today's medical world, it is common for a person to have multiple doctors, and to seek treatment from specialists. If medical records are not readily available to doctors, then the patient's care ultimately suffers, as information about past treatments and conditions could be unavailable.

In the same vein, medical research into cures and preventions is greatly assisted by access to aggregate medical information. Insurers also have a legitimate financial interest in the medical histories of those they are going to insure. Because of this, they conduct physical examinations and look at available medical records to determine the rates they will charge for coverage. Still, the idea that medical records should be kept private is ancient, going back to the Hippocratic oath.

The oath stated, "whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret". This idea has become one of the keystones of medical ethics; doctors should not reveal confidential information about their patients. Largely because of this history, people have a great expectation of privacy in regards to their medical information. Some questions remain though, how much information should an insurer be privy to?

Should they be allowed to check an individual's genetic record? Should they know if an individual has ever taken an HIV / AIDS test? How readily available should our medical information be, and what steps should be taken to protect it? These important questions are currently unanswered.

Consumer privacy is a concept that people no longer take for granted. In a world where telemarketers call at dinnertime and personalized junk mail arrives daily; individuals have to either accept, or actively confront, these constant invasions of privacy. With the arrival of the Internet, and the growing number of people engaging in online transactions, the modern concept of consumer privacy is undergoing a subtle and significant change. To some, telemarketing is merely an annoyance; to others, it is an invasion of privacy. Either way, it is a practice where you receive unsolicited calls, your telephone number possibly having been obtained from some third party source. The rise of Internet commerce changes this situation.

Web sites can use cookies, or small bits of information stored on a browser, to surreptitiously track the movements of individual web users. This allows for advertisers to more accurately direct ads towards individual browsers, resulting in increased profits. It also raises privacy concerns. Privacy advocates are concerned about the dissolution of consumer privacy.

According to them, the use of cookies and other tracking devices is unethical and a violation of privacy. Most cookies are deposited on an individuals browser without their knowledge, and while it is possible to "opt-out", or actively remove oneself from the list, the process by which to do this can be unclear, and possibly hidden in the backwaters of the website. Also, there are places individuals go that they don't necessarily want everyone knowing they went to, such as HIV testing, adult sites, gay sites, etc. The fact that someone is keeping track of everyone's movements is concern enough. Individuals have a certain expectation of privacy, and if they are being observed without their knowledge in an environment that they believe to be anonymous, then their privacy has been violated.

The advertising industry tells a different story. Direct marketers have a tremendous financial interest in obtaining an individual's personal information. Targeted advertisements receive more hits (clicks by browsers) than static ads, and thereby produce greater profits. Advertisers state that consumers' privacy is not being violated because they are not personally identified, and that much of the information is obtained through voluntary disclosure. Also, they argue that consumers enjoy the increased convenience that targeted advertising provides, from Amazon. com knowing what books you like, to being sent banner ads for sporting events instead of CDs.