Employee Monitoring: Take a Stand for your Privacy

We live in a world where monitoring has become a regular practice as multiple apps and software are being developed that do a pretty good job of keeping an eye on the users. The practice of monitoring has run rampant in almost all workplaces because employers want to ensure that employees focus on tasks assigned to them rather than getting swayed by distractions. For this purpose, they install monitoring apps or software on the digital devices of their employees so that they can monitor all of their activities.

If employers are concerned about productivity and dodgy employees, then it is their right to see how the latter spend their time while at work, but there’s a thin line between monitoring and spying. However, some employers don’t realize this. They cross the limits and snoop into employees’ personal activities. Although this does not sit well with the employees, there are rarely any instances where they actually oppose this blatant breach of privacy. There is no room for suppression in today’s modern world. Employees have to realize this and raise their voice against employers to ensure that they do not spy on anyone’s personal devices. We have outlined a few measures in this article that will help you get rid of spying.

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Set Limits

As an employee, you must realize that you are working to get paid and you are not a slave who anyone can control at will. If your employer is monitoring your personal activities, then you must take a stand against them and involve other staff members in this expedition as well. You are well within your rights to ask for your privacy. If you are working in a company that deploys bring your own device (BYOD) culture, and then in no given scenario should you allow them to install any kind of monitoring app or software on your device until you are given a thorough explanation of what it does and to what extent. Because once it’s installed, there’s just no way for you to keep your privacy.

Stop Unannounced Spying

In some instances, employers spy on the activity of the employees without telling them about it. This is downright criminal, and if the employer gets caught doing it, he/she could be looking at some serious jail-time. However, exposing your boss won’t be too easy as most of the monitoring apps stay hidden and are very difficult to find. This is where you have to use your common sense, if your employer is indeed spying on you without your consent then they must throw a hint about it when they are talking to you, especially in relation to your personal life. Do concentrate on what they are saying and you will know if you are being spied on with ease.

What’s Allowed & What’s Not

As mentioned above, employers want to make sure that the employees spend their time at the office working on the tasks assigned and for that they install different monitoring apps. It’s fine as long as they realize that employees have a personal life of their own which they should not interfere in. Employer can check the online activity at work, block certain websites, check for data leaks, but there’s just no reason to snoop into someone’s social networking profiles or know about their passwords. Most of the monitoring apps have key logging feature enabled that gives information about every word typed on the device to the employer. This is a big invasion of privacy, which is why it should be disabled at all times.

The aforementioned points are only some of the measures that you can take to ensure that your privacy isn’t being invaded at workplace. You are not a slave or a property of your employer and you must keep that in mind.