Employee Privacy Report

Employee Privacy Report

Employee Privacy Report
Beverly Jaquez
COM285
April 19, 2010
Guadalupe Martinez

      Employee Privacy Report
      Last month, our company implemented privacy policies as well as additional policies directed to regulate the use of e-mail and Internet for our employees. E-mail and Internet use, and privacy policies are areas that we needed to cover with formal policies and procedures, as too often issues have been experienced that our managers were unsure how to handle. Thanks to the support of Bixler’s lawyers, we were able to implement policies successfully that should minimize similar issues in the future.
      In this report, I will explain the privacy policies that we implemented for e-mail and Internet use, why we had to implement them, the assumptions employees might make about their privacy at work, how these policies affect employee privacy at work, and what are the current laws regulating employee e-mail and Internet privacy.
The Problem of Catching Employees Surfing the Internet
      The partners along with managers found several employees surfing the Internet and downloading junk software in their company issued laptops during their audits. Surfing Internet and downloading junk software may jeopardize the company as the employee’s computer may become infected with a virus or a Trojan horse virus that allows hackers to steal company information. Further, employees who surf Internet or use e-mails for personal reasons may lower employee productivity.
Implementation of E-mail, Internet, and Privacy Policies within Our Company
      The company lawyers helped to update our employee handbook. More specifically, our employee handbook states that e-mail systems should be used for business only. The handbook prohibits employees to use e-mails to distribute non-job-related information or solicit to coworkers. E-mail passwords must be made available to the company at all times. For business purposes, management reserves the right to monitor the...