workplace privacy

Workplace Privacy
Student’s Name:
Institution
Workplace Privacy
The introduction of technology in workplaces has created new concerns for work privacy, to both employees and employers. The use of technology at work is rapidly increasing. Employees communicate to their employers through the email, and various customer transactions are also done through the internet. Use of emails and the internet can significantly reduce the amount of inventory and real estate an organization requires and also help in the expansion of a business. Hence most workers, as opposed to ten years ago, now have internet access in their workplaces, thus the increasing concerns of the privacy of their documents due to cyber-crimes.
The laws put in place to address workplace privacy include the Fourth Amendment law of the constitution, the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and invasion of privacy laws. The Fourth Amendment law provides the right against unnecessary electronic surveillance or searches of their papers, houses or personal effects (Lewis, 2016). However, this only applies to government employees. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act protects all kinds of digital communications except communication through newsgroups, public forums or Usenet (Lewis, 2016). The act outlaws unauthorized seizure of oral, wire or electronic communications during transmission or accessing information stored by email. Employees are protected from employer intrusions for instance when employers share the network of communication with their employees.

Other legal issues are common invasion of privacy that protects the employees against infringement of their privacy rights.
I think the employees have more rights concerning workplace privacy. However private employees have relatively little freedom as compared to government employees. Employers also develop a clear policy that protects them. These policies are to be followed by the employees to help them understand the threshold of what is considered reasonable workplace privacy concerns.
References
Lewis, J & Ella, J. (2016). Employee Monitoring and Workplace privacy law. American Bar
Association.