Watch Out -- Your Boss May Know More Than You Think

By Colleen DeBaise

Special to the Chicago Tribune

Many companies have long used video cameras and closed-circuit television to monitor employees and entrances. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, heightened security concerns, particularly among food manufacturers and medical-supply makers who worry their products could be tainted by unscrupulous employees or intruders.

"When you hire someone, you are giving them a road map to your operations," says Craig Lawrence, vice president of Aurico Investigations. "It's absolutely crazy to give them the keys to your place and say `go ahead.'"

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Arundhati Parmar, a Chicago writer, knows what it's like to be spied on. He worked last year at a consumer magazine in San Francisco where the managers installed a camera to monitor small talk between employees.

"I did not even notice it until the art director pointed it out," Parmar said of the camera, located in the far corner of the office. To deal with the situation, he and co-workers started passing notes instead of talking. "Even before the camera was installed, it was an ugly place," he added. "It just got worse."

Workplace surveillance, while not exactly new, has become more common place as technology has improved, gadgets have become cheaper, and security concerns--prompted by terrorism--have risen.

Gadgets galore now track workers. ID badges that emit infrared signals and allow nursing and store supervisors to instantly locate staff on the floor. At banks, workers are identified via retinal scans or fingerprints. Employees at high-security government buildings must step on a mat that recognizes their height or weight before gaining clearance. Advances in global positioning system (GPS) tracking make it possible for companies to track their vehicles--and their drivers' movements--in precise detail. And even the bathroom isn't safe from scrutiny: Sensors on soap dispensers and faucets can record each time food-service and health-care workers wash their hands.

As the economy has soured, employers worried that unlimited Internet access slashes workplace productivity have turned to software packages such as SurfControl Web Filter and Elron's Message Inspector and Web Inspector, which track e-mail and even create an archive of all on-screen activity.

All of this has prompted concerns among privacy and workplace experts, who worry such monitoring devices represent an intrusion in workers' lives. A May study by the American Management Association found that more than half of employers monitor e-mail, and 22 percent have terminated an employee for violating e-mail policy. An earlier study by the group found that 82 percent of major U.S. corporations keep tabs on employees though some form of monitoring, including videotaping them at work or reviewing voicemails.

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