Watching the watchers: "voluntary monitoring" of infosec employees

Purpose – While many papers discuss the privacy implications of workplace monitoring, the purpose of this paper is to describe the positive aspects to voluntary monitoring in the workplace.Design/methodology/approach – These aspects were identified through in‐depth qualitative interviews with employees of various organizations chosen for the invasiveness of their monitoring procedures. Specifically, the authors worked with individuals who had high‐level government clearances, working in information security (infosec), who were subjected to comprehensive monitoring both before being employed and during the term of their employment.Findings – Through these interviews, the paper identifies four positive results of employee monitoring, four procedural issues that affected employee perception of the monitoring, and two secondary aspects that are specific benefits of holding a clearance, as opposed to benefits from the monitoring itself.Research limitations/implications – The research reported here is gathered ...