Politech mailing list archives
FC: U.S. firms may not secretly monitor workers; dot gov privacy bill
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 17:15:04 -0400
[Preventing surreptitious monitoring does seem to be a Good Thing. But the question has to be: How best to accomplish it? It strikes me as reasonable that as people become more aware of privacy issues, they'll demand that business do the right thing, and companies will respond. It's interesting that arch-conservative Rep. Bob Barr, not usually a fan of federal regulation of businesses, is taking the lead here. --Declan]
Also see a possibly-related article: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37714,00.html 12:00 p.m. Jul. 21, 2000 PDT WASHINGTON -- Dot-gov websites that snoop on you may soon have to mend their ways. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to require some federal agencies to report on how they track visitors. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Washington) successfully added the amendment to a spending bill being debated this week on the House floor. [...] The measure gives the government agencies funded by the appropriations bill 90 days to report their activities to Congress. The affected agencies include the Treasury Department, the IRS, the Postal Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Secret Service, and the Executive Office of the President. [...] http://schumer.senate.gov/html/schumer__canady__barr_introduc.html For Immediate Release July 20, 2000 SCHUMER, CANADY, BARR INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO PREVENT SECRET COMPUTER MONITORING OF EMPLOYEES Bill Requires Employers to Notify Workers of Electronic Monitoring Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Reps. Charles Canady (R-FL) and Bob Barr (R-GA) today introduced legislation that would prevent employers from secretly monitoring their employees' electronic communications. The Notice of Electronic Monitoring Act requires employers to notify their employees if they are scanning or reading their e-mail, monitoring their keystrokes or web use, or listening to their phone conversations. "We would never stand for it if an employer steamed open an employee's mail, read it, and put it back. It is the same thing with an employee's e-mail," said Schumer. "This legislation says to employers that if you are monitoring employees' electronic communications, make sure you notify them first." Schumer's legislation requires employers to notify new employees of electronic monitoring upon their hiring and all employees on an annual basis thereafter and when monitoring policies change. The notification must clearly spell out the type of computer use that will be monitored, how this monitoring will be accomplished, the frequency of the monitoring, the kinds of information that will be obtained, and how the information will be stored and used. The bill does not prohibit any type of monitoring or require per call or per incident notice. It also allows for secret monitoring if an employer has reason to believe that an employee is engaging in conduct harmful to another employee or the employer. "New technology has made it cheap and easy for employers to secretly monitor everything an employee does online," said Schumer. "This legislation provides workers with a first line of defense against a practice that amounts to nothing more than a blatant invasion of privacy." Schumer announced the legislation at a press conference with Professor Jeffrey Rosen, author of The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America, Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Lewis Maltby of the National Workrights Institute, and Greg Nojeim of the American Civil Liberties Union. ### -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- FC: U.S. firms may not secretly monitor workers; dot gov privacy bill Declan McCullagh (Jul 21)