None of your Business?
By Mimi Rosenheim
Imagine demanding access to someone's entire life without a second thought. You want a social security number, DNA, financial history, fingerprints, and access to family information, correspondence, files, and medical history.
Sounds intrusive, but it's likely that you have all of that information about your employees, and then some.
I don't advocate companies ceasing all employee-tracking activities. In fact, I appreciate efforts to ensure that my coworkers will leave their weapons at home and that they will use the company technology to get their work done. However, I'm dismayed by corporate America's lack of sensitivity to employee rights where personal information is concerned.
Data Kings
These days, employers must protect themselves by obtaining more and more information on their employees. Technology has made the data gathering, storage, and analysis as easy as the push of a button. And tightening corporate budgets mean that many companies are reevaluating which assets can be sold to the highest bidder.
For the past few years, customer privacy has been a predominant concern, scaring many potential customers away from Internet commerce. Companies have actually been created to protect the average person from the big bad corporate monster that gathers all the information it can and sells the information to whoever wants it. Even Congress has weighed in on this important topic, placing the issue front and center.
Throughout this tumult, little comment has been made on the issue of employee privacy.
