Workplace Surveillance
Technology in workplace (surveillance)
Definition of technology * The study and knowledge of the practical, especially industrial, use of scientific discoveries. (Cambridge Dictionary Online) * Technology also refers to tools, machines and control devices used to carry out tasks and the principles, techniques and reasoning which accompany them. (Tony Watson, 2008) * Many fields of science have benefited from technology, as well as commerce and industry over the many centuries of human history.
Workplace surveillance * According to Cambridge Dictionary Online, surveillance defined as the careful watching of a person or place, especially by the police or army, because of a crime that has happened or is expected. * According to Lyon (2001), modern surveillance refers to any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data has been garnered. * Due to the rapid growth of technology in workplace, modern surveillance in workplace has many differences when compare to the past. In the past, surveillance was overt, …show more content…
Walker (1999), stated that most employees will commit some kind of infraction of computer, internet or telecommunications policies in their working life. If this data is used incorrectly it can serve as a catalyst for discrimination, unfair dismissal and other abuses. For evidence, in the case of New South Wales Privacy Committee, private investigators confirmed that they were hired by employers to place individual workers under surveillance so as to gather evidence in order to fire them. Dixon (1995) stated that this practice of using surveillance data to dismiss unwanted employees can be confirmed by a number of Australian cases. Those cases highlight the potential for surveillance technologies to be abused in the workplace as a means of discriminating against
Definition of technology * The study and knowledge of the practical, especially industrial, use of scientific discoveries. (Cambridge Dictionary Online) * Technology also refers to tools, machines and control devices used to carry out tasks and the principles, techniques and reasoning which accompany them. (Tony Watson, 2008) * Many fields of science have benefited from technology, as well as commerce and industry over the many centuries of human history.
Workplace surveillance * According to Cambridge Dictionary Online, surveillance defined as the careful watching of a person or place, especially by the police or army, because of a crime that has happened or is expected. * According to Lyon (2001), modern surveillance refers to any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data has been garnered. * Due to the rapid growth of technology in workplace, modern surveillance in workplace has many differences when compare to the past. In the past, surveillance was overt, …show more content…
Walker (1999), stated that most employees will commit some kind of infraction of computer, internet or telecommunications policies in their working life. If this data is used incorrectly it can serve as a catalyst for discrimination, unfair dismissal and other abuses. For evidence, in the case of New South Wales Privacy Committee, private investigators confirmed that they were hired by employers to place individual workers under surveillance so as to gather evidence in order to fire them. Dixon (1995) stated that this practice of using surveillance data to dismiss unwanted employees can be confirmed by a number of Australian cases. Those cases highlight the potential for surveillance technologies to be abused in the workplace as a means of discriminating against