Ethical Issue on Employees’ Surveillance on Social Media and GPS

Final Case Brief
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Final Case Brief
Case Synopsis
The primary ethical problem in the digital era is employees’ social media surveillance and tracking of their physical location by employers. In particular, workers should fulfill their obligations and undertake their duties and responsibilities based on their scope of work. When using company-provided electronic devices, they should not use them to meet their personal needs. In addition, employers have the right to monitor electronic gadgets that they have given their employees to ensure that they are used in the right way (West, 2021). However, using technology and apps to spy on workers on social media without their knowledge and tracking their physical location, particularly when they are off-duty is unethical. Everyone has the right to privacy. Being employed in a specific company does not mean that employers own those who work for them. Employees should socialize and interact with whoever they want and companies have no right to intrude in their lives. For the company-provided devices, business owners should monitor how their workers are using them to facilitate productivity. For instance, employees should not use computers provided by their employers to chat with friends or families during working hours. Nevertheless, it becomes an ethical issue if business owners spy on the employees on social media and track their physical location even when off-duty.
Key Facts
Corporate employees’ surveillance and global positioning system (GPS) tracking have become common in the recent past as organizations continue to look for ways to boost productivity and profitability. Based on Gartner’s 2018 survey, approximately 22% of corporations and using employee-movement data globally. Specifically, 16% are using calendar-usage data or Microsoft Outlook, and 17% monitor work-computer usage (Sheng, 2019). For example, large companies, such as Walmart, patented a system in 2018 that would enable it to listen to the conversations of workers and customers. In addition, Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics allows employers to know the time that their employees spend sending an email, time spent working overtime, and meeting time. Humanyze, a company based in Boston, makes wearable badges that comprise microphones, Bluetooth, RFID sensors, and accelerometers (Sheng, 2019). In 2015, Myrna Arias noted that her employer tracked all her movements even during off-duty hours since her company-provided smartphone was GPS-enabled. Arias, Intermex’s former sales executive, opened a lawsuit for privacy violation by her employer. When Intermex gave its workers smartphones, the company ordered them to install the Xora StreetSmart app (Peterson, 2015). The app has GPS monitoring features that allow employers to track the specific geographical location of their workers. In other words, since employees were expected to stay with smartphones to make it easy for them to stay in touch with their customers, they were monitored and tracked 24/7. Although Arias was a salesperson, she had agreed to be monitored when working, but she did not allow her privacy to be violated when off-duty (Peterson, 2015). Intermex made it clear that disabling or uninstalling Xora StreetSmart was unacceptable and that it would lead to the firing of employees who engaged in such actions. Arias was fired for disabling the GPS-enabled app on her firm-provided smartphone.
Moral Analysis
The primary moral issue is 24/7 surveillance by employers on social media and tracking physical location using GPS technology. Workers’ privacy is at stake. Based on the “Moral Compass Workbook,” moral considerations of freedom entail the understanding of things that constitute “unfreedom” (Thompson, 2005). Employees should have the right to retain their moral vision, which can only be done when they are allowed to express themselves using their core values, namely justice, world peace, freedom, truth, and friendship. The primary moral actor is the employer. Employers’ decisions and actions determine the moral resolution of this ethical issue. The intuitive moral judgment of the problem is a privacy violation. The values involved are freedom, loyalty, justice, and human life. My moral judgments and values conflict since one cannot understand why employers want to monitor their workers all the time on social media and track their physical locations even when off-duty. Where is the personal data collected stored and who is allowed to access it? What if the data falls into the wrong hands, who should be responsible? The issue constitutes a right/wrong type of conflict. The other moral perspective that should be conside...