Privacy Policies
Luis D. Maymí Romero
University of Phoenix
COM/285
Prof. Richard Valdes Gonzalez
April 27, 2015
Privacy Policies
All my employees prior to using the company email account or the internet they have to sign a waiver of privacy and confidentiality. This document prohibits the employee to print or share information regarding the company. Also in the document states that employees may not use the internet for personal use to view web pages like facebook, MySpace or twitter. Other websites that are prohibited are game sites, peer to peer sites and pornographic sites. One of the main reasons for prohibiting these types of site is that they make your computer vulnerable to Trojans, worms and other types of viruses. Employees in most of the cases will prefer to access these sites allowing them to earn their wages without actually doing their duties. They can get distracted easily while surfing the net allowing them to minimize their productivity.
At this time of age where terrorism, child pornography and other illegal activities. That why Email privacy is derived from the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and is governed by the "reasonable expectation of privacy" standard. Unfortunately, given the open nature of email mentioned above (passing through several computers and stored at multiple locations), the expectation of privacy may be less for email, especially email at work, than for other forms of communication.
Emails are also governed by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Patriot Act. Although the ECPA originally set up protections (such as a warrant requirement) to protect email, those protections have been weakened in many instances by the Patriot Act. Even where the protections remain under the ECPA, emails lose their status as a protected communication in 180 days, which means a warrant is no longer necessary and your emails can be accessed by a simple subpoena.
Companies use internet usage policy because it dictates what is deemed to be appropriate internet browsing behavior in the workplace. This policy typically enforces time restrictions for employees when browsing the internet for non work-related tasks as well as stipulating what genres of sites they are allowed to browse. Having an internet usage policy, which can also be referred to as an acceptable use policy (AUP), ensures that employees are following directives that serve to safeguard their work environment and the IT network infrastructure.
Many employers and employees share common assumptions and misconceptions about privacy in the workplace. One widely-heard misconception is that either the "Freedom of Information Act" or the "Privacy Act" forbids a company from releasing an employee's personal information, including a Social Security number (SSN). Federal laws do not apply to a private employer's actions. They either obligate federal government agencies to release, or prohibits government agencies from releasing, certain private information about citizens to outside parties. Without significant exception, employee information provided by employers to federal agencies, such as with payroll information to the IRS, is exempt from public disclosure.
The worst type of invasion of privacy is probably "identity theft", in which someone else using a victim's personal information incurs in soliciting and using the identity for illegal and personal gain under the victim's name, leaving that person with a tangle of financial problems to sort out. In a recent incident, a group of persons have not shredded properly their billing and personal information and these documents have been sifted from the garbage facility. The personal information was lying completely open and unattended in an ordinary garbage pile. The person that gathered the information, mainly name, address, birth date, next-of-kin, and SSN records, used it to apply for fake credit cards and other credit applications for him and some like-minded individuals.