Graham Smith wrote:
>Increasingly it appears that employers are reacting to employees abusing
such privileges by withdrawing them. Typically this may result in
prohibiting private use of Internet access and computer facilities,
inspecting emails and other correspondence (including opening anything
marked "Private and Confidential") that are being sent or received using
the employer's facilities.
>All of this seems quite reasonable to me (assuming that good practices,
such as informing employees of such policies). Indeed, as a taxpayer, I
object to my having to pay money to subsidise private activities of public
sector employees.
This seems to me to ignore any kind of proportionality. People have lives
outside work which will necessarily sometimes intrude into the workplace,
they will have relations with colleagues that are not purely professional
(and I'm not talking about sex on the desk) and the employer who attempts to
exclude any right to privacy or non-work activity in work time is probably
also going to break a string of laws, even if, by warning workers, the DPA
is not necessarily one of them. (Actually if it's outside some other law
it's likely to be outside the DPA too, isn't it?)
It seems to me no more realistic to ban private e-mail than private 'phone
calls. What is needed are clear and sensible policies to tell people what's
expected and how much allowance will be made. For example 5 minutes on a
private e-mail or 'phone call to arrange an emergency plumber or medical
appointment or to check with your child's nursery may be fine and half an
hour a day on the 'phone to your spouse/lover/bookie/long-lost relative in
Hong Kong probably won't be. Some things are clearly abuse.
So far as opening anything marked "Private and Confidential" is concerned,
that may well breach agreements with trade unions and therefore trade union
law, if a worker is discussing a grievance with an official, or the right of
representation if there's a disciplinary or grievance procedure underway. It
may also breach the rights of a member of the public who has communicated
sensitive data with the employee in an official capacity without ever being
warned that it may be opened arbitrarily by the office dictator without good
reason!
The last thought is that, as with other forms of misappropriation (viz
Worldcom?) the people most susceptible to monitoring are not likely to have
the same freedom to breach the rules in the first place. For example,
they're probably less likely to writing contributions to this list!
Paul
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
available to the world wide web community at large at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at : -
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/user-manual/summary-user-commands.htm
(all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|