SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES IN WORKPLACES By:         Course Name Professor’s Name University City/State Date of Submission         Table of Contents Abstract 3 Background. 4 Introduction. 5 Research Objectives. 6 Research Questions. 6 Literature Review.. 7 Research methodology. 12 Nature of the research. 13 Data collection. 13 Case studies. 13 Surveys. 14 Focus groups. 14 Review of literature. 15 Questionnaires. 16 Interviews. 16 Ethical Consideration. 17 Project Plan. 17 Gantt chart 17 References. 19 Appendix. 23  

Abstract 

Surveillance technologies have been gaining popularity in workplaces and homes for monitoring employee and children respectively. In workplaces, surveillance technologies are in the form of tracking surveillance, computer surveillance, audio-visual surveillance and aural surveillance. The continued adoption of surveillance technology follows the recent technological advancement in the workplace, which has availed improved technological tools that enable managers to monitor and measure employees’ performance. The benefit of surveillance technologies in the workplace is its use as a supervisory tool and a way of enhancing security. However, the application of surveillance technologies is associated with social, legal and privacy concerns which arise from unchecked surveillance. The research aims at exploring the social implications associated with the adoption of surveillance technologies in workplaces. The social implication entails ethics and privacy aspects.           Social Implications of Surveillance Technologies in Workplaces

Background 

There has been an emergence of various technologies at the workplace, and workers have been taking advantages of the technology to facilitate personal aspects such as communication and other applications that are not related to their company duties. According to Sanders et al. (2013, p. 21), personal usage of company resources such as telephone and the internet gives employers and companies’ legitimate justifications for the applications of surveillance technologies to survey and monitor their workers. Furthermore, crimes within workplaces have been on the rise since 1990, and the fact that such internal crimes contribute to 30% of company losses, the introduction of surveillance technologies was a sigh of relief to most organizations (Applin & Fischer 2013, p. 271).  In the modern organizations, the common vice that consumes workers’ time while on duty is personal web browsing, which is a non-work affiliated activity that has been anticipated to be curbed through the use of activity surveillance technologies. It follows previous studies and research conducted by UTI (2010, p. 24) to investigate employees’ behaviors that discovered that most of the workers spend a considerable amount of time between 3-4 hours weekly, browsing the internet using company resources in search of their personal welfares. It is a waste of time that could have been used for productive activities. Other activities that are considered to be of personal interests and consumption of company resources include web browsing to access online shopping sites and social networks.  It is for that reason that organization has applied surveillance technologies to monitor employees to prevent them against excessive usage of the internet, and in some cases block specific websites.

Introduction 

Surveillance technologies are defined by Ball (2010, p. 89) as the types of devices and systems that are used in monitoring communications and actions of people in a confined environment such as workplaces. Technological advancement in the workplace has availed improved technological tools in workplaces that have enabled managers to monitor and measure employees’ performance. The advantage of surveillance in the workplace is its use as a supervisory tool and a way of enhancing security (Determann & Sprague 2011, p. 1002). However, the application of surveillance technologies is associated with social, legal and privacy concerns, which arise from unchecked surveillance. The key issues are that the application of surveillance in workplaces includes limiting employee social interaction. Surveillance technologies in contemporary society occur in various forms such as tracking surveillance, computer surveillance, audio-visual surveillance and aural surveillance.  Aural surveillance entails the application of listening devices for recording and overhearing conversation by other individuals (Dawson 2009, p. 24). Aural surveillance is mostly applied by police in the form of bugs during the process of investigating fraudulent crimes. On the other hand, Chinyere and Chiemela (2008, p. 2351) defines visual surveillance as the utilization of closed-circuit televisions, video cameras and still cameras to observe and monitor other individuals’ actions. Visual surveillance is used in workplaces such as departmental stores and other areas where employees can commit crimes. Most of the contemporary organizations have adopted the application of audio-visual surveillance to augment the benefits that can be obtained through the utilization of both audio and visual surveillance techniques. As suggested by the name, audio-visual technique record gestures, movements and conversation of individuals (Ball & Margulis 2011, p. 118). Workplaces that have implemented such type of surveillance have cited the benefit of easy identification of an individual in a group. A common surveillance technology in contemporary workplaces is the computerized surveillance. The surveillance technique entails reading and assessing the storage mechanisms on other people’s computers. It is of particular interest in workplaces where there are complaints of workers using organization’s computers to conduct personal businesses and operations (Eivazi 2011, p. 519). Computer surveillance entails the act of monitoring employees’ operations while they are utilizing computers to execute their duties in the workplace.

Research Objectives 

The aim of the research is to elucidate the social implication of surveillance technology, drawing examples from organizations that have enacted surveillance technologies for monitoring their employees. The social implication that will be explored in the research traverses legal, privacy and ethical issues associated with the implementation of surveillance technologies. The research aims at drawing insights from Data Protection policies, laws, and regulations associated with the use of surveillance tools in collecting and storing subjects’ data.

Research Questions 

1. Is the application of surveillance technologies tolerable in organizations, even with employees’ consent that they are being monitored? 
2. Do organizations consider social, legal and privacy implications of surveillance technologies before their implementations?
3. Does the application of surveillance technologies in diverse contexts respect the rights of an individual?

Literature Review 

Surveillance techniques are often utilized in organizations where most of the workers execute their duties using computers. Engaging in other activities during working hours is prohibited in most institutions, as it reduces the effectiveness of workers. In a research carried out by Berndtsson (2008, p. 49) involving more than 300 managers, 60% of the managers reported that they had installed surveillance technology to monitor employee operations. 14% of the managers who had not adopted surveillance technology expressed their anticipation of adopting the technology in the future. There are also similar reports that have revealed an upsurge of organizations adopting the technology since 2000 for the purpose of monitoring their staff members (Rosenblat 2014, p. 8).  As a result, it is notable that the application of surveillance technology is the modern norm in 21^st century organizations. Computer surveillance strategies in most workplaces include keyboards spectator Pro, which is applied in recording time, date and keystrokes when windows are opened. Other technologies are packet sniffers, which are installed on computers to act as spyware to record all the activities and individuals using a particular computer. Computer surveillance is also supported by tracking surveillance, which entails the application of tracking devices that are mounted on humans or mobile objects such as company freight vehicles to monitor their locations and activities while on transit (Vitak 2011, p. 1752). The common strategy applied in the type of surveillance technology is the application of RFID tags for tracking human beings and objects. The appreciation of surveillance in the society has been due to security reasons, but its application in workplaces has attracted criticisms due to the privacy and legal issues surrounding its ability to hinder social interaction among employees.  While the application of surveillance technology has been associated with some benefits, especially in the security realm, there have been various legal, privacy, and social implications of the use of technology on the human beings. There have been growing cases that the applications of surveillance technologies are a type of abuse. Also, there has been a growing concern about what the companies do with the data they collect in their surveillance tools (Best 2010, p. 275). Other questions that have arisen regarding the applications of surveillance technology include whether there are laws and policies that revolve around data retention.             One of the leading social implications of surveillance technology is a breach of privacy. As stipulated in Article 12 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no individuals should be subjected to indiscriminate meddling with their privacy (Roberts & Palfrey 2012, p. 38). It is to imply that all individuals are protected by the Article provision against subjection to interference as the law protects their privacy. The protection against interference can be applied in the situations where surveillance technology has been applied as a tool for abuse such as the installation of surveillance cameras in private places such as workplace bathrooms, without the consent of the employees and other users of the facility (Kidwell & Sprague 2009, p. 196). The UN Act, together with other laws and policies in workplaces are violated by such practices, as it is illegal to collect data or information about an individual’s activities without their prior knowledge. When employees are subjected to surveillance technologies such as RFID tags, it is one way in which organizations violate privacy rights of the employees, which can amount to lawsuit costs if workers take legal actions against such practices. In the UK, people are entitled to data privacy rights by the Data Protection Act, which is a regulation violated by the application of surveillance technologies. The foremost Data Protection Act principle ratified in the UK in 1998 for the first time stated that personal data have to be lawfully and fairly processed (Landau 2010, p. 212). The implication of the principle, drawing reference on the unconsented use of surveillance technologies is that personal data should be collected and processed with the consent of the individuals. The law and other similar regulation have been ratified across the globe so that the data subjects obtain insights and comprehension on when and why data is collected and processed. The social implication of surveillance technologies has also been observed in homes, such as the cases where parents install surveillance devices in their homes to monitor their nannies’ activities on their children (Roseberg 2010, p. 142). Most of the surveillance tools are installed in homes without the knowledge of nannies. While parent would justify their actions with the rights to monitor and observe their kids, the concept of watching over is limited by their intention to engage in the “watch over” activity.  In the UK, the installation of surveillance tools in homes without the knowledge and consent of nannies is a violation of the Data Protection Act, and the parents can be held liable for violation of the law (Sullivan College 2013, p. 4).             In many organizations, violation of workers’ privacy has been worsening by the lack of data retention policies. Therefore, organizations have had the tendencies of collecting and storing data from surveillance technologies for an indefinite period. For that reason, principles of the Data Protection Act are violated such as the one stipulating that personal data must not be stored for a long time, then it is required to fulfill its envisioned purpose (Schumacher 2011, p. 139). Abiding by the principle means that the organizations are obliged to collect and use data within a specified time and should be discarded once it has served the intended purpose. The principle has been applied in the UK to address the ethical and social implication of surveillance technologies; following the findings that a majority of the organizations have not implemented data privacy policies to protect data against long storage and application in ways that were not intended.  The common question that has lingered the minds of most workers operating under close monitoring of their bosses is with regards to the length of time that the information stored in the computer, visual and audio surveillance technologies should be stored. According to Ledema and Rhodes (2010, p. 215), it is the expectations of most workers that their respective workplaces should have policies that guard their data against misuse. Apart from privacy issues, other social implications of surveillance technologies include the social impacts of the application of technologies on employees such as disorganization, stress, and insecurity among the workers. In a survey conducted by Fountain and Peter (2012, p. 221), the application of surveillance technology without the consent of workers leads to workers becoming stressed and insecure. The findings hold some truth, considering that when workers are monitored during their working hours, they feel judged as the employers have visual and audio footage of their activities. Employees believe that surveillance technologies convey enough evidence to justify workers’ actions while on duty and workers are not allowed to validate the reasons why the actions done went against the institution’s policies. In many cases, employers have used the surveillance technologies as substantial evidence for testifying on workers stray activities from company guidelines, laziness and mistakes arising from errors while executing their duties. The consequences of surveillance monitoring of workers include the workers working to impress their bosses to avoid being entered in company’s black book and to avoid termination of employment. While the application of surveillance technologies has been associated with reducing laxity among the workers, there are negative social implications such as stress. The key findings of the research conducted by Mitrou (2014, p. 8) indicates that the use of surveillance monitoring of employees inflicts fear and stress on workers. On the other hand, a similar research conducted by (Oates 2006, p. 112) to ascertain the effects of surveillance technologies on employee performance indicated that due to the installation of employee monitoring tools, workers tend to work hard to impress their bosses and seek ways of gaining promotions. The findings further clarify that monitoring of workers during their working hours contribute to straining and working without relaxing to have a chat with a fellow employee. In the contemporary organizations where teamwork is a strategy for boosting performance, the use of surveillance technologies can affect br...