Your employer may know you’re listening to this. . .</p>
Workplace monitoring is pretty much a fact of life these days. Most companies do it one way or another, as new technology makes it easier to spy on employees. So privacy advocates are pushing for some new ground rules. Jeremy Hobson reports.
TEXT OF STORYSCOTT JAGOW: Whether we like it or not, our employers are keeping an eye on what we do at work. Who we email. The websites we visit. Even where we go. Today in Washington, some privacy rights groups are pushing for new ground rules. Jeremy Hobson reports.
JEREMY HOBSON: According to the American Management Association, three quarters of employers monitor their employees’ Web surfing. A majority looks at their workers e-mail messages. And some even use GPS technology to track employees who carry company Blackberrys or phones.
LILLIE CONEY: What may have been science fiction 10 years ago is now reality.
That’s Lillie Coney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. She says it’s not so much what employers know, it’s that employees aren’t aware of what their employers know.
Take background checks, which can lead to firings.
CONEY: Errors in records are very common. And without a requirement that you as a subject of a report have notice that this report says X about you, you don’t have an opportunity to correct incorrect information.
Even those who argue employers should monitor workers say companies ought to be transparent about it.
In Washington, I’m Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.