Blurred Boundaries: Social Media Privacy and the Twenty‐First‐Century Employee

This paper discusses the future of employee privacy in social media.Part I reviews the extant legal landscape with an emphasis on three general areas of employer activity related to employees’ online activities: (1) monitoring and surveillance of employee social media profiles, (2) evaluation of applicants’ social media profiles and online speech in making hiring decisions, and (3) limiting employees’ off-duty online activities.Part II reports the results of an empirical research project into the expectations of young employees regarding the role of social media in the workplace. We asked respondents about a wide range of topics related to social media, such as the extent of personal information they post online, the privacy-protective measures they employ on social media sites, their level of concern regarding their privacy online, and their attitudes and expectations regarding the use of social media in the workplace. Despite granting employers access to information about their private lives by participating online, respondents expect that work life and private life should be generally segregated — and that actions in one domain should not affect the other.Guided by the survey findings and legal examples from international jurisdictions, in Part III we offer workable recommendations designed to protect employees’ desire to maintain some separation between personal and professional contexts.

[1]  C. Winn.  Les femmes et le développement de la culture du livre (XVIe - début XVIIe siècle) , 2016 .

[2]  Corey A Ciocchetti.  The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Employee Monitoring: The Eavesdropping Employer , 2011 .

[3]  K. Sheridan.  Staying Neutral: How Washington State Courts Should Approach Negligent Supervision Claims against Religious Organizations , 2010 .

[4]  Jason L. Snyder.  E-Mail Privacy in the Workplace , 2010 .

[5]  Corey A Ciocchetti.  The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty‐First Century Framework for Employee Monitoring , 2010 .

[6]  S. Greysen,et al.  Online posting of unprofessional content by medical students. , 2009, JAMA.

[7]  Dianna L. Stone,et al.  Effects of electronic mail policies on invasiveness and fairness , 2009 .

[8]  P. Winn.  Katz and the Origins of the 'Reasonable Expectation of Privacy' Test , 2008 .

[9]  N. R. Mansfield,et al.  THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP: AN ANALYSIS OF THE CYBERSPACE WORKPLACE , 2008 .

[10]  A. Levin.  Big and Little Brother: The Potential Erosion of Workplace Privacy in Canada , 2007, Canadian journal of law and society.

[11]  N. King,et al.  Workplace Privacy and Discrimination Issues Related to Genetic Data: A Comparative Law Study of the European Union and the United States , 2006 .

[12]  Lior Jacob Strahilevitz,et al.  A Social Networks Theory of Privacy , 2004 .

[13]  James Q. Whitman.  The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty , 2004 .

[14]  H. Nissenbaum.  Privacy as contextual integrity , 2004 .

[15]  Adam Gatt,et al.  Electronic Commerce - Click-Wrap Agreements: The Enforceability of Click-Wrap Agreements , 2002, Comput. Law Secur. Rev..

[16]  Bradley J. Alge,et al.  Effects of computer surveillance on perceptions of privacy and procedural justice. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[17]  Jeffrey M. Stanton,et al.  Traditional and Electronic Monitoring from an Organizational Justice Perspective , 2000 .

[18]  G. Gumpert,et al.  The Demise of Privacy in a Private World: From Front Porches to Chat Rooms , 1998 .

[19]  T. Dworkin.  IT'S MY LIFE ‐ LEAVE ME ALONE: OFF ‐ THE ‐ JOB EMPLOYEE ASSOCIATIONAL PRIVACY RIGHTS , 1997 .

[20]  Janice C. Sipior,et al.  The ethical and legal quandary of email privacy , 1995, CACM.

[21]  Laura B. Pincus,et al.  THE DISPARITY BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR EMPLOYEE PRIVACY PROTECTIONS: A CALL FOR LEGITIMATE PRIVACY RIGHTS FOR PRIVATE SECTOR WORKERS , 1995 .

[22]  D. Mayer.  WORKPLACE PRIVACY AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT: AN END TO REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS? , 1991 .

[23]  T. Dworkin.  PROTECTING PRIVATE EMPLOYEES FROM ENHANCED MONITORING: LEGISLATIVE APPROACHES , 1990 .

[24]  Daniel J. Solove,et al.  A Taxonomy of Privacy , 2006 .

[25]  Tony Mauro.  Katz v. United States , 2006 .

[26]  Sylvia Kierkegaard,et al.  Privacy in electronic communication: Watch your e-mail: Your boss is snooping! , 2005, Comput. Law Secur. Rev..

[27]  Ryan J. Casamiquela.  Contractual Assent and Enforceability: Cyberspace , 2002 .

[28]  K. J. Conlon.  Privacy in the Workplace , 1996 .