Dataveillance: Employee Monitoring & Information Privacy Concerns in the Workplace

Information privacy concerns are a dominant concern of the information age. Such concerns emanate from the tension between the correct use of personal information and information privacy. That tension has extended to the computer-mediated work environment as employees are becoming increasingly aware of the ways in which management can employ technologies to monitor their email and Internet interactions. Such information privacy concerns have the potential to negatively impact organisational productivity and employee morale. The aim of this paper is to outline some of the major issues relating to workplace surveillance and provide a balanced perspective that identifies the emerging issues and subsequent privacy concerns from the employee’s perspective as well as the rationale underlying managements’ decision to employ monitoring technologies in the workplace. In doing so, it attempts to progress academic understanding of this issue and enhance practitioners’ understanding of the factors that influence employees’ technology-related privacy concerns.