Workplace surveillance

Workers of the world are exposed to many types of privacy-invasive monitoring while earning a living. These include drug testing, closed-circuit video monitoring, Internet monitoring and filtering...Employers have an interest to supervise in order to address security risks, sexual harassment, and to ensure the acceptable performance of employees. However, these activities may diminish the moraland dignity of the employee and increase their stress.
On one hand, the employers explain that workplace surveillance is essential for security, and productivity in increasingly competitive markets.They tell that they have the right to ensure that they 'get what they pay for'. Furthermore, the workplace is a place of 'work' which definition excludes the 'personal' dimension at the core of allprivacy claims. Legal developments, especially in the USA, seem to favour such an interpretation.
On the other hand, the most debated issue of workplace surveillance is employee privacy rights. In theUnited States and many third-world countries, workers have very few privacy protections in law. There are few situations where an employee has a due process right to access, inspect, or challengeinformation collected or held by the employer. There are multiple states and federal laws that grant employees limited rights. For instance, under federal law, private-sector employees cannot be requiredto submit to a polygraph examination. However, there are no general protections of workplace privacy except where an employer acts badly (where the employer violates the employee's reasonableexpectation of privacy).
Very different is the situation in Europe. European employers are bound by comprehensive data protection acts that limit and regulate the collection of personal information onworkers. These laws specifically call for purpose and collection limitations, accuracy of data, limits on retention of data, security, and protections against the transfer of data to countries with weaker...