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Germany To Grant Privacy At the Workplace
An anonymous reader writes "The German government is proposing a bill declaring that employees have an expectation of privacy at the workplace (translated article). Among other provisions, the bill would ban employers from surveilling their employees by cameras or logging and reading their emails. Also, potential employers would not be allowed to view an applicant's profile at Facebook or any other social network that hasn't actually been made for this purpose."
Good thing for German workers.
That would be like me saying I can't put a GPS on my car to keep tabs on where it goes when my son drives it. If you're on facebook at work when you should be working, I think the employer has a right to know about it. Also, no cameras? So they can't utilize technology, but they're still allowed to stand behind you and watch you work, right? The only difference between the two is the technology behind the first one.
Also, potential employers would not be allowed to view an applicant's profile at Facebook or any other social network that hasn't actually been made for this purpose.
How would they go about enforcing this? Couldn't an employer argue that any content on a social networking profile that someone makes available to the public, was made for everyone to see? Failing that, how do you prove when an employer looks at a public profile?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This seems absurd... all my mail servers log employees' email every day. Even worse, my spam filters read the entire message to make sure it is acceptable- before allowing delivery to the employee. These privacy measures may sound great on paper, but not all will work. If IT cannot log emails, how do we troubleshoot email delivery problems? Of course, I may be taking this to the next level, completely ignoring the actual wording of the proposed law.
No, after a series of scandals (that went far beyond keeping employees from stealing or surfing all day), just no cameras e.g. in change rooms or rest rooms, where they wouldn't be allowed to stand in front of you and watch you undress etc. "IRL" either.
Also, no covert widespread phone surveillance or reading of private correspondence (if allowed on company premises/equipment in the first place) under the "excuse" that they'd need to find "moles" (celebrated as whistleblowers entitled to special protection in other jurisdictions).
The Facebook prong is an entirely different thing altogether: HR (or private investigators on their part, probably even "pre-emptively") shouldn't be allowed to intrude social networking sites as "false friends" to harvest dirt on (would-be) employees (not that anyone in their right mind should let that pile up there anyway).
The level of detail is not necessarily the wisest way to make law, though: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1762764&cid=33337514
I think there is some big cultural difference here between the US and Europe. I worked as a sysadmin for a few years. As far as I know, monitoring employees is completely illegal here (Belgium). You can't read emails or try to see which web sites have been visited by an employee. At most, you can make anonymous statistics, and I think you have to warn employees before. I don't think it would be legal to physically watch an employee all day, neither. Having employees sign some kind of agreement would be illegal, too. Saying that it's your computer so you can monitor them if you want has no legal value. It's your air, but you can't decide how much an employee can breathe ;-)
I remember asking legal advice before signing my first contract. The conclusion was there was an illegal clause, which I could sign without any problem, as it was illegal and in fact had no value.
You might believe an employer should have those rights, however here in Europe we actually believe in protecting and putting our citizens above corporations.
This is not the first example of Europeans placing more emphasis on citizens' rights than the US.
It is fascinating how even the average American believes that corporations are entitled to treat their employees as [wage] slaves! It's as if you think employees sell their dignity when they take a job!
In my country overtime is frowned upon, if you don't leave at the end of the day people will wonder why you haven't finished your tasks in time. Staying after hours is just seen as inefficient. So while we work fewer hours than the average American we're still more productive and efficient according to the OECD.
I think you're all semi-brainwashed by decades of anti-communist, nationalist [capitalist] propaganda. I hope it wears off soon for your own sakes, the average American could use some decent jobs, rights and protections. Contrary to popular American beliefs the United States of America is not the best country in the world.
The stories about privacy protections always seem to favor personal privacy in Europe, but to favor privacy invasion in the US. How do Europeans get better protection? European government looks a lot more bureaucratic and controlled access than even the US, which I would think would favor industry which has the time and money to ensure privacy can be abused for power and profit. Maybe it's because the protections begin at the state level, which is more accessible than the EU as a whole, while in the US state privacy protections aren't as powerful as Federal protections for invading them, or just a vacuum of protections at the Federal level. Or maybe EU privacy orgs are just more effective, perhaps better funded, than the US ones like EFF. Or maybe we just get the news of only privacy protection from EU, not privacy abuse, while in the US we get the abuse news so we're conditioned to accept it.
How do Europeans do it? I'm jealous.
--
make install -not war
Many of these protections are already in place in the US and Europe is just catching up. For example, US employers have been limited for years in how they can use social networking sites, based on existing US non-discrimination and privacy laws. Many of those restrictions in the US are based on case law; they don't require separate legislation. In Europe, legislators need to pass many more explicit laws, and a lot of that is knee-jerk reactions to recent events and populist legislation that sounds good on the surface but that nobody knows how it's going to work out in the long run.
And you're also right that a lot of European privacy abuse just isn't reported on much in the US. For example, the law in the story was prompted by several huge scandals in which big German companies spied on their employees, again in ways that are already totally illegal under US law.
Other European privacy abuses aren't even perceived as such in Europe; people are just used to a more intrusive government. Many other European privacy abuses aren't visible at all. For example, despite all the brouhaha over Google Streetview in Germany (=big evil US corporation), it turns out that the German government itself regularly does detailed aerial surveys and precise GPS measurements of buildings and sells that information to anybody willing to pay for it (starting at around $200k); that data really is problematic, since it not only shows in great detail private areas protected by fences, but also is being used to charge individuals with code violations. And it's quite clear that European intelligence services spy on their citizens without as much as anybody even batting an eye.
Much of the "Europe is better" perception is a myth, created by the European media and European governments to make Europeans happy, and some of that propaganda spills over into the US.
The idea that you can understand something like privacy laws, which are complex and nuanced, from a half-nonsense google translate is just crap. My German isn't perfect but here are the main points of the article from the German original (http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/0,1518,713153,00.html):
* Video surveillance is banned in areas that have a 'private character' to them such as toilets, change rooms and rest/break rooms. It's still allowed in other areas as long as employees are informed and there's no attempt to hide the cameras
* Recruitment - no data from social networks such as Facebook may be used as part of the recruitment process, social networks specifically designed for recruitment (I reckon they mean ones like Linkedin) are still allowed to be used
* You're still allowed to use any other publicly accessible data off the net, although there may be restrictions related to how old it is or whether the employee/candidate has access to update or remove the data
* Medical examinations - may only be used when there's a good reason
* Screening (they define it as comprehensive comparisons of one employee against another) may only be used under strict conditions. The data must be handled anonymously unless it shows strong evidence of a problem (eg. criminal activity).
* The law establishes conditions under which phone and email communication can be monitored. These conditions vary depending on documentation requirements, the type of business and the individual usage agreements for IT in each company.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
There are studies.
Today Europeans in general and Germans particularly know what happens if you let governments screw around to much. We've already tried out the prime example of a fascist regime, the one and only, the Mercedes-Benz class of totalitarian states, so to speak. And it ain't pretty, trust me on that one. Curiously enough, I have the entire spectrum of sides in the 'Third Reich' in my family. My US Grandpa was there on D-Day, my German Grandpa is a Type-A Waffen-SS /SD Officer - (Kompanieführer) still alive and kicking at 96, (blacklisted in the US too ... the whole shebang), and my uncle was a Jew on the run from the Gestapo and the SS, hiding away in sewers and all that. We've basically got it all here in one spot, German post-war offspring from US soldiers (f.e. me), old Nazis, art-class comrades that where 'unerwünschte Personen' ('unwelcome persons') in eastern Germany before the reunification, etc. pp. If you're only the slightest bit interested, you get a full-scale rundown of what happens when things in politics and public affairs go hairwire or head down the wrong road. The mechanisims aren't trivial, but there all the same, be they Nazi, Commie, Fundamentalist Islam or whatnot. Very interesting live history lessons to be made here indeed. One of the upsides of living in Germany.
And while a basic trust in law and order is commomplace around western Europe Civil - manly due to the dence population and a historically grown optimization of things, civil disobedience and a basic sence of educated distrust is also quite commonplace around here. I presume the latter is due to a (still) relatively high level of education among the general population.
God help us all when the US comes around to taking it's shot at fascisim.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In the US, (IMHO very bad) court decisions have made it so that businesses - corporations - are commonly treated as if they were persons under the law. This leads more or less naturally to weighing the rights of the corporations against the rights of a flesh-and-blood person; and when a corporation contributes more to the public trough than the citizen does, the outcome is often a foregone conclusion.
Lately, it's been rattling around in my old head that perhaps, instead of treating corporations like persons, we should treat them like useful, but very dangerous, viruses. Comparable to one that generates some useful end product, but would eat your flesh off if you got any on you. Because other than the end products they make, I'm really hard put to think of much good corporations do unless they're legislated into a corner and forced into it.
In this case, the nagging thing is that if there's corporation on the one hand, and it thinks it has a right to look at your credit history, your online activity, or how you crap in the bathroom, and an actual person on the other, who thinks they have a right to privacy... you know, I'm probably going to side with the person. Perhaps we should be thinking how to best rein in corporations instead of how to rein in employees. Legally.
Might this disadvantage the corporation? Yeah, it might. Just like the constitution disadvantages (well, is supposed to) the government. My response to that is that if the corporation wants to ensure the person's loyalty and fidelity, that they do so by ensuring that the person in question has every reason to feel that serving the corporation is the best choice. Rather than depending on rights-eroding legislation to trap the employee into a regimented behavior pattern they really don't support.
Perhaps they could start by paying a little less to the top levels, pruning the ridiculously incompetent middle management, and compensating the people who do the actual work a little better. Maybe even provide decent healthcare, you know? Radical, I know, but it's late, and I'm riding the caffeine monkey, or vice versa. All I'm sure of right now is that the ringing in my ears isn't the damned liberty bell.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yes, I know this might come as a shocker to many but there are people, companies, managers and even governments (not necessarily the German one though) that do not see a human as a pure cost factor, comparable to a machine on the assembly line or the rent for the office.
A human should be treated as such and surprisingly will perform quite well if done so. What do you expect from someone who is monitored 24/7 (or at least 8+/5), whose work time is recorded by the second? Sure, that might work for really basic jobs, like cleaning the roads or the like. But for anything a little more demanding or even remotely creative (yes, even working in a lousy call centre requires some creativity at times) this will result in frustration and delivery of the minimal required performance instead of the maximum possible.
Stop to treat your employees like animals in a barn and you might notice a surprise: productivity goes up!
You are technically correct. However, "slack" is important.
If you are constantly under surveillance by the government, you are living in a police state. This does not make for good living.
It's no different at work. If you are constantly under surveillance, you are in a sweatshop, which does not make for a good working environment. Such working conditions are unacceptable.
If you cannot trust your employees to get their work done, then you either need to train them or fire them. If they get their work done, then it should not matter if they spend a bit of time dealing with personal matters while in the office.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.