Whitty Monica

Big Brother in Australia: Privacy and Surveillance of the Internet in the Australian Workplace

Abstract

The notion of electronic monitoring in the workplace is a debatable issue. On the one hand, companies argue that Œcyberslacking¹ leads to loss of productivity and waste of resources. The use of company e-mail for personal reasons, and the downloading of pornography are two obvious examples of a growing phenomenon. On the other hand, employees themselves are apprehensive about the amount of unsolicited e-mail received, and anxious about possible computer viruses, and other employees¹ Web viewing habits (such as downloading pornography). Whilst employees have been understandably concerned about the erosion of their privacy, the Australian Government is yet to determine legislation in respect to Internet privacy and surveillance. There is currently a dearth of available Australian baseline research available on employee¹s opinions on Internet activity in the workplace. This paper reports the findings from a survey, which asked Australians about their attitudes on appropriate usage of the Internet and e-mail in the workplace, and their opinions on employer¹s usage of filtering software. Of interest were, the number of employees who did not know whether their company has an explicit policy regarding Internet use or if their company was currently using e-mail or Internet filtering software. In addition, some important gender and age differences are reported here.