Canadian Privacy Head Says Work E-mail Private

loraksus points out this article from last week with pro-privacy news for Canadians: "Employees in Canda have a "fundamental, inherent right" to privacy in the workplace, and this includes the right to private e-mail, says federal Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski." ----ndra---------------------7711151414664 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="query"

Comments

Netscape's problems with similar issues in the pas

[Kingfox]

Just reading this article made me chuckle, realizing how different it is in the US. JWZ had some pontification about Netscape's internal email being public during legal wars with M$.

At my current job, we've got a couple levels of communication.. the internal discussion boards, and the real secret never talked about in public ancient communications method. While the whining we do isn't about a billion dollar megacorporation that can send a barrel full of lawyers to yank it out, I wonder what exactly determines who has the rights to what discussion in the US. I know it isn't as free as Canada, but where exactly is the line drawn?

Hmm...

[RareHeintz]

Well, there's something that's possible in Canada but not in the U.S. - the corporations apparently haven't taken over our northern neighbor to the extent that they have here.

The whole debate kind of reminds me of drug testing (in non-safety-critical jobs, anyway). Basically, if an employer needs a worker to piss in a cup to tell if there's a problem with his work, then the issue is with management, not with the worker. If the worker's work is good, then the employer shouldn't care at all what shows up in a drug test, unless the employer has also appointed himself the employee's moral watchdog as well.

Is that really a role you want your boss to have?

It seems the same argument could apply to Internet use in the workplace as well: it ought to be obvious if there's a problem with an individual worker, even without a draconian monitoring policy. Inability to detect a problem is a failure of management, not a reason to tighten the shackles on all workers.

OK,
- B
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