Airman Jones Essay

Employers all over the world, be it public or private sector, lose countless man-hours to employees partaking in personal time. Employers usually pay their workers an hourly rate. If the workers spend half their time chatting on Facebook or texting their loved ones instead of working, the amount of money lost daily becomes astronomical. Airman Jones is a social butterfly. The first thing when she comes into work in the morning is to open her Microsoft Outlook and the Air Force Portal Instant Messenger program. On a daily basis, the first one to three hours in the morning, she is messaging her friends and sending photos selfies from the day prior. Employee Monitoring is a necessary evil to observe the behaviors of individuals on the clock, however, there is a fine balance required so the company doesn’t overstep the

Ontario v. Quon (2010) was a case in which protected the rights of government employee’s emails through the fourth amendment, however, these privacy rights do not extend to the private sector. The private sector must depend on the laws of the state they are located in to know the boundaries the company can invoke on their workers. A telephone case was seen in 1983, Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Company. This case involved L.M. Berry & Company recording their employee’s conversations regardless if it was work or personal in nature. Once seen before the judge, the ruling favored the plaintiff, the company must stop recording the conversation upon realization a call is private. Another situation privacy rule, if a worker uses their own device (cell phone, ipads and/or desktops) for work, the company can (depending on the employee agreement) view everything on the device ranging from photos to personal e-mails and everything in between. Not only that, the employer can completely wipe the hard drive of any personal equipment used to perform a work