FC: U.S. firms may not secretly monitor workers; dot gov privacy bill

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[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.

                                    ###

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