IT Knows What You’ve Been Doing

Your company’s information-technology department can know every word you write and everything you do with a work-issued computer if it wants. What you and your employer do about it is the question.
Boeing recently fired an employee for speaking to the media, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. Now, some Boeing employees worry that the company is reading emails sent from their personal accounts. When asked if this was the case, a Boeing spokesman told the P-I, “Our company computing systems are the property of The Boeing Co., and our employees are very aware of their responsibilities in using their systems, and in their use they consent to using those assets properly.”
In other words, yes, the company reads it. In fact, from a tech standpoint, there’s very little you can do on a work-owned computer or a computer you own attached to the company’s network that isn’t traceable. IT departments can track every Web site you visit, scan the contents of every email you send – whether it’s from a work-issued or personal account – they can log every letter you type.
Some companies are legally obligated to scan all outgoing emails for words that might indicate someone is disclosing trade secrets or financial data. But there’s a line between protecting the company and invading employees’ privacy, a line that’s rarely talked about. For the sake of starting the conversation, let’s call it the scanning-personal-emails-to-find-a-whistleblower line.
The issue isn’t going away. The only reason that more employees don’t get caught in the middle of this is that many IT departments are too busy to do anything with this information. But most of the corporate security heads that the Business Technology Blog talks to say that their biggest concern is a malicious insider, which would indicate that they’re going to keep a closer eye on employees.
Most of us signed something the day we joined a company saying that all the information on our work-issued computers belongs to our employers and are subject to search. But who acts this way? As work continues to intrude into people’s personal lives, it only seems fair that employees should be able to do things like send personal emails while at work – preferably without the fear that their employers are reading them. Company-issued laptops only confuse the matter more; we’re expected to bring work home and on the road with us. Are we also expected to bring a second laptop along to send an email to our families?
The legal and ethical conversations always lag new technology. Is this enough to start a conversation about monitoring employees?