Employees right to privacy - TERM PAPER

Employees’ right to privacy
Name:
Institution:
In the contemporary society, privacy has become a disputed and vague value. This is because of incredible increase in the technology of computer for past decades. Therefore, this need and calls for advanced protection of privacy has overwhelmingly increased. However, there has been a lot of confusion regarding the value, nature and extent of privacy. There has also been argument made by philosophers that in order for the society to be able to maintain its core values, there should be simultaneous privacy guarantee of an individual. Every employee deserves or has a right to be left alone when it comes to their personal privacy (Jones & Teevan, 2007). Recent businesses and inventions methods seek attention to the other level that ought to be taken for a person’s protection as well as securing the individuals’ information. In the chapter fourteen of the seventh edition of the book, ‘Employment law for business,’ an incident has been elaborated regarding a police employee and violation of his privacy together with his colleagues their boss.
The advanced computer technology has contributed to exposure of numerous employees who use the computer services for their personal issues. Reports has it that nowadays, employers are demanding the log on information as they recruit new employees as well as from the other employees. This action has caused outcries regarding the violation of personal privacy, which has led to calls for members of congress to intervene by performing federal investigations. This kind of privacy invasion is contributing to numerous cases of unemployment as the existing or potential employees’ private information is accessible. After employers obtain the log on information, they keep track of the employees’ mails and other personal information. If there is existence of any inappropriate information that the employers did not approve, the employees are sacked or fail to be recruited. The employees and those seeking jobs are exercising this social network with a lot of caution since justice of privacy invasion is not yet solved. (Bennett & Hartman, 2009).
There was an observation from Bellace, the professor of legal studies and ethics of business in Wharton. She said that in the United States, if individuals tried to challenge such a kind of practice would lack the legal ground to support them. She put in that some individuals think that they bear more rights than they have. This is very true, as most employers tend to think they should dominate their employees’ every aspect of life. There is always threats that if the employees take a legal step to sue their employers for invading their privacy. The existence of this social media is likely to put many employed people into trouble. In earlier days, there was a bit of struggle before reporting a certain employer’s misconduct because the means were slow.
Unfortunately, the existence of face book and twitter that are faster causes angry employees to post information that may cost them their jobs. There have been numerous cases of such scenarios and the outcome has always been displeasing. Other incidents that may cause an employee to be sacked would be using harsh words to describe their boss or put negative information concerning them. In case the employers are in position to access such kind of information, they may not think twice about sacking the employees that are responsible in tarnishing their names. If there were employees’ protection of their personal information, such cases of unnecessary sacking would be few (Smith, 1994).
While in some countries there is quite some level of privacy, it is not a hundred percent guarantee that some employers will not demand for the same. In addition, there should always be a boundary between job and personal life, that’s a rule from almost every employer directed to the employees. Ironically, the same employers decide to invade wanting to know about what goes on in their employees’ private life.
The ruling of the trial court was that Quon together with the police officers were expecting to have privacy concerning the contents of their messages. However, the court dismissed the claims of the Fourth Amendment because the jury had found that the actions of the police chief were driven by the genuine reason of finding out whether the police officers made payments unfairly for the overages related to work. However, the Ninth Circuit reversed the issue making a conclusion that the motives of the police chief would not determinative since he could have applied tactics that were less intrusive than auditing the messages. Thus, the United States Supreme Court made a reverse on this...