Solutions and Recommendations

Assistance in establishing an environment based upon respect and trust in the context of workplace monitoring is available from several sources, including the Federal Privacy Commissioner and the Law Reform Commission of New South Wales Interim Report on Surveillance. Employers and employees need to value each other and recognise that they need to work together. In 2000 the Commissioner released Guidelines on Workplace E-mail, Web Browsing and Privacy (Office of the Federal Commissioner of Privacy, 2000). The Guidelines emphasise that the organization should develop an IT or Acceptable Use Policy. The policy should:

• be distributed and understood by all staff;

• clearly indicate prohibited conduct;

• provide detail of the type of information that is recorded and who has access to this material;

• emphasise the need for network security;

• outline how monitoring will occur and indicate appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms; and

• be reviewed on a regular basis.

This list of matters should be read together with the eleven information privacy principles encompassed within Commonwealth legislation mentioned earlier. It should be remembered that the Guidelines are intended to apply to the public sector. The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner is currently reviewing the guidelines and their application to private organizations. The guidelines can operate as a checklist to reduce confusion regarding workplace monitoring. The recommendations from the New South Wales Law Reform Commission effectively call for an extension of the Workplace Video Surveillance Act 1998 . Existing legislation covers optical and listening devices. These include video cameras and microphones. The Act does not apply to computer networks. Monitoring what sites employees visit online or what they send in e- mails is not covered. The report also placed emphasis on distinguishing between covert and overt means of monitoring.

The Victorian Law Reform Commission has recently distributed a discussion paper that focuses specifically on workplace privacy. Existing Victorian legislation is comprised of the Surveillance Devices Act 1999 . It is similar to the New South Wales Workplace Surveillance Act 1998 in that it focuses largely upon optical monitoring.

Australia does not have a bill of rights, and privacy is protected by a patchwork of legislation on both state and Commonwealth levels. Society is still attempting to understand the nature of Internet technologies. Although it may seem that the World Wide Web has had a long history of being used in business, it needs to be remembered that it was only created 10 years ago (Andreessen, 1993). Experience in using convergent technology is important if appropriate legal measures are to be enacted. New South Wales is moving towards enacting new legislation that would cover the monitoring of Internet use in the workplace. Despite this development, there is a need for Commonwealth legislation. This need is based on the characteristics of digital technology and business structures that span more than one jurisdiction. Commonwealth legislation would provide a common perspective. It could be largely based upon existing privacy principles and the guidelines that have been formulated by the Federal Privacy Commissioner.