Thursday, September 2, 2010

Privacy in the Workplace.


The concept of SURVEILLANCE automatically seems to give out the impression that PRIVACY has been violated. There’s someone watching; there’s someone being watched. Many questions and potential issues would then arise out of this situation, i.e. purpose of surveillance, manner by which it was undertaken, scope of surveillance, among others. Wikipedia defines surveillance as the “monitoring of the behaviour of a person or a group of people, often in a surreptitious manner.” In a work setting, employees would almost always be monitored so as to assess their output, productivity and efficiency owing to the fact that having been logged in to work for a certain number of hours, therefore, they are expected to well, work.


I understand the pros and cons of employee surveillance. However, we could also all agree that it should be done within limits. There are essentially two rights involved here: the employee’s right to dignity and privacy and the employer’s proprietary right to monitor his workers. Given the rate at which work surveillance is being used on an international scope, as well as here in the Philippines, it might be proper to take another look at our existing legislation and determine the next steps that would have to be done. At present, we have no definite bill addressing this situation; there also seems to be no widespread clamour for Congress to act.


Entry No. 11

Rachelle Mayuga

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