Employer Is Watching You Many Record Voice Mail, Review Computer Files And Videotape Workers

Feel like the boss is watching your every move? You might be right.

Nearly two-thirds of employers record employee voice mail, e-mail or phone calls, review computer files or videotape workers, the American Management Association said Thursday in a survey that represents the most substantive look yet at the prevalence of employer spying.

Moreover, the association said, up to a quarter of companies that spy don’t tell their employees.

In almost all cases, it’s perfectly legal. Employers can secretly record and review almost anything a worker does short of, say, videotaping the bathroom stalls.

“Employees are generally at the mercy of employers,” said Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of the Privacy Journal, an independent monthly. “There is no protection in the workplace.”

Surveillance raises age-old privacy issues: How much does a boss have to know about workers to run the store?

Yet, in the computer age, the balancing act becomes even harder because employers have easy and powerful ways to keep tabs on the help.

The only federal law that limits employer surveillance is the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act which bans employer eavesdropping on spoken personal conversations. Companies, however, can listen to business phone calls and monitor all nonspoken personal communications.

The new survey looked at 900 midsize and large companies. The findings - 63 percent of companies use some surveillance or monitoring and up to 23 percent don’t tell workers - surprised both the survey’s authors and civil rights advocates.

The most common forms of surveillance are the tallying of phone numbers called and the duration of calls (37 percent of companies); videotaping employees’ work (16 percent); storing and reviewing e-mail (15 percent); and storing and reviewing computer files (14 percent).

DuPont Co. looks into phone or e-mail records only if a problem is suspected, said spokeswoman Becky Hamlin. But the company routinely monitors the heaviest Internet users to see if inappropriate sites are being visited.

Bankers and brokers are watched most often, mainly because of strict industry rules, according to the survey.

Privacy advocates agree some watching is warranted but criticize the lack of national guidelines. And they say employees always should be told.