Conclusion

The State of Workplace Privacy

There's not much to applaud about the current state of workplace privacy in the United States. The technological capability of employers to monitor the activities of their employees surges ahead on a nearly daily basis, and neither Congress nor the nation's labor unions have come up with an effective response. In addition, the events of 9/11 have created an environment in which residents of this country are willing to tolerate—and even welcome—a much higher level of surveillance by both government and businesses.

The chief problem, of course, is that once surveillance cameras, Internet monitoring software, drug tests, GPS, RFIDs, infrared badges, and detailed background checks are in place, they are rarely removed or turned off. As politicians, celebrities, and royalty have known for decades, it's far harder to regain privacy than to defend it in the first place.

There are some signs of grassroots resistance: In the United States, public outcry led to the abandonment of the Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS) program, which sought volunteers to spy on their neighbors, and in Canada, Professor Ronald Deibert of the University of Toronto urged people to participate in "World Sousveillance Day" on December 24, 2002, by using their own cameras to take pictures of surveillance cameras in public spaces. ^[1]

State snooping and surveillance of daily public activities are attractive targets for citizen outrage; even under the shadow of terrorism, we still retain a deeply ingrained resistance to government agents watching our public activities. If personal privacy is something we truly value, however, we need to bring that resistance to surveillance into the workplace, and find ways to balance the legitimate interests of employers with the equally valid privacy interests of employees.

^[1]Professor Deibert defines "sousveillance" as "to view from below," in contrast to "surveillance," which means "to view from above."