I do agree that this may keep employees from wasting 20 minutes every couple hours on facebook but I think this does more damage then good.  What is the difference between an employee accessing facebook and making personal calls to the doctor, dentist or family members?  Not much both are a part of balancing both work and home life.

I think it also denies that facebook is a networking site and it a very good tool for communicating.  By banning facebook so quickly we are preventing it from becoming a useful office tool.  Who knows how facebook will expand, and the office space maybe a good area for their growth.  by keeping facebook in the office it may become an office tool on its own.  It maybe a fun and well organized tool to connect with co-workers and plan workplace events and meetings.

Sarah Campbell

Not only does it invade your personal time off the clock but also your personal privacy.  In a recent case corporate black berry’s were searched and all personal information was viewed.  Workers text messages were all reviewed for specific content.  This is where personal privacy becomes blurry.  If the corporation owns the Blackberry do they have the right to view it’s content anytime?  The blackberry user has personal information that also needs to be protected, so do corporations have a right to view it at all?

The American government ruled that it was in fact a privacy violation to view any content on a corporate owned blackberry because it is also a personal tool and holds various forms of personal information that needs protection.  Although Americans are now protected from their employers viewing any content on their blackberry, it does not protect them from employers viewing their blackberry use, such as the phone numbers they have contacted.  So overall we have limited protection, but personal privacy protection non the less.

The biggest problem I see with this is the fact that corporations have become so comfortable with invading personal privacy through workplace tools that they had no problem doing it again with these blackberry users.   Corporations have become so self righteous with our personal privacy they truly believe they can view any and all personal information on their tools.  They want to own our personal time and our personal freedoms.

Sarah Campbell

“surveillance technology is developing at great speed, and its potential is “virtually limitless”. The law had not kept pace with technology.”

The problem is that technology is always advancing and its uses are constantly being changed and improved and the legal system has such a long process that privacy laws just haven’t changed.

“It is important to put boundaries in place to control its harmful use before it is too late.”

As of right now companies can use new technology in basically any way they wish to, with the only limitations being the laws already in place which are clearly outdated.  So the limitations placed on them are not very restricting and therefore our personal privacy is constantly in limbo and open for abuse because very little is protecting us.

I believe the only way to better protect our personal privacy we need to change the system that regulates it.  Technology is always going to be moving faster then our legal system and simply waiting for it to catch up is simply silly and impossible. Instead I believe we need to change the system so corporations must get approval from a new body of the government devoted to personal privacy technology of how they wish to use new technology.  This way the government will have stronger control over how technology is used in public spaces and our personal privacy will be under constant protection and awareness of new technology changes.

Sarah Campbell

This has also changed personal privacy expectations and sharing.  Many people feel free to share very personal things in their facebook status, but this information is not just shared with your close personal friends but with those other people who we hardly know.  This part of facebook we have very high levels of control over, what we post and who sees it but other parts we have less control.

When we join facebook and select the networks we would like to be associated with we may not realize that this opens everyone in that network access to view parts of your personal profile and information.  The most important thing we must remember is that we must be aware of all the other people that have access to our information with out our friendship.  We must consider what information we place on our profile and also use the various privacy settings available to us, but we must protect ourselves.

The biggest question we must keep in mind is

“when everyone’s a friend, is anything private?”

Sarah Campbell

The boss knows you have your blackberry with you and  doesn’t think twice to call, text or email any time of the day or night.  Employees feel obligated to answer these messages quickly, in order to look good to their boss and because they feel they must since they are given this tool, that they must use it as it is asked.  It is an unhealthy cycle of expectations and home life interruptions.  The home has now become the second office.

Recently the canadian bank Scotia bank has been granted by the supreme court to go ahead with a class action suit for unpaid overtime.  Its seems many employees have needed to pull extra hours in order to meet the needs of their customers, which do not always fit in their normal 9 to 5.  The source of a majority of this overtime was accumulated through the company blackberry and personal phones.

During certain times of the year the banking business gets insane, such as RRSP season and because of this employees are expected to work harder and longer.

“We are expected to be available 24/7 during this time, making calls on the weekend and in the evenings, without overtime payments,”

So why aren’t they getting paid?  Its simple its hard to track business time on company phones, or people simply don’t think to do so.  Also employees at Scotia bank are supposed to get approval a head of time to work overtime.  Iy is almost impossible to predict a 2am call from the boss, and thats what employers are banking on.

Sarah Campbell

I find this funny and hard to believe, does the canadian government really think they could prohibit facebook in canada?  I mean the whole china vs. google thing wasnt really a hard battle, google wasnt very big in china so it was easy for them to walk away.  But i mean how would our nation really stop the large force of facebook.  I kinda feel facebook just made their changes to be polite and maybe save some time in dragged out court battles.

Besides the ridiculiousnes of the facebook showdown, Stoddart did make excellent points about the how people can protect themselves, legalities of facebook photos, and private computer use at work.    In order to be aware of what is one the internet about us Stoddart sugested we all google ourselves frequently to see what pops up in the results.   If we see anything we dont like we can ask for it to be taken down.  Companies do look to the internet to see the private likes of future employees, to see more then whats written in their beefed up resume.

This is an excellent piece of advice, although we do know what we post about ourselves we dont always know what others post about us.  This comes to another point in the interview where George asked about others posting photos of other people on facebook.  Our profiles an be packed with pictures of ourselves we never posted.  All we can do is untag ourselves and ask for the pictures to be taken down.

The more important issue I was most interested in was Stoddart’s comments on workplace privacy and use of workplace tools for things outside of work.  Stoddart’s main point was that we all must balance our work life and our home life, and sometimes we need to use a bit of our work time to balance the other parts of life.   We all need to make appointments and answer personal emails and we can’t always do things after work due to the basic 9-5 business hours.  Businesses do have family friendly policies to help cope with the balance between home life and work life.  businesses cannot open personal email or monitor too much because it does breach privacy laws, but they can monitor lightly your internet use.  As long as the employee is not taking up too much work time with private issues it seems to be acceptable practice.

This balance between private time and company time I believe needs to be rethought.  Employers seem too quick to cross that line, by searching for future employees social activities online they are now judging the private area of our lives and not our professional behaviour.  With company provided cellphones and etc. employers are leaping into private life and the balance is being thrown off.

Many people worry about what future employers could see about them on the internet but I think people have to be just as concerned with how much they are being monitored in the workplace as well.  Our privacy and private life should always be a concern, but it seems to be a declining thought when it comes to technology use.

Canadian government’s helpful internet privacy information

The Hour Interview

Sarah Campbell

Employers are now not just looking at your personal appearance but our online and concealed identity.  Many employers are not searching out potential employees Facebook, twitter, blogs and myspace if you have it, basically anything that comes up with a google search of your name.  Yes employers aren’t that high tech yet.  They also maybe investigating your own personal finances.  Yes some employers do conduct credit checks.

Thats right credit checks.  So don’t break the bank on a new suit it may keep you from that job.  But how is that not an invasion of privacy?  I truthfully don’t know but new laws are starting to pop up that regulate more of what employers can look at for potential employees.  This is all very hard because technology is always moving faster then the legal system.  Also more and more personal information is now becoming open to the public and employers are apart of that and use it to their advantage.

So do wear the tie and the new suit but maybe go back and google your name and untag yourself from those drunk party pictures.  Also be aware of the personal information that is public on the internet and ask for some of it to be taken down.  A lot of laws state that nothing can be posted if the person demands it be taken down.

Sarah Campbell

Today with large invasion of self creation on the internet search is still in high demand but also leads to high control.  Recently government has directed their efforts towards watching how internet providers control personal internet flow and creating regulations of net neutrality.  But the internet provider is not the main censor of internet intake, search engines are.

“Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The [government] needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance.”

We need to be aware of the open ability that search engines have to restrict and dictate what results show up and in what order, on the main idea that the first few pages of results will be the only ones viewed.  As search was discovered to be the gold mine of the internet many began popping up but over the years with so much competition most of the search engine  options have dwindled down to a handful of survivors.

“The need for search neutrality is particularly pressing because so much market power lies in the hands of one company: Google. With 71 percent of the United States search market (and 90 percent in Britain), Google’s dominance of both search and search advertising gives it overwhelming control.”

We need to be aware of the control that google and their counter part search engines have over how we perceive the internet, our world, and information.  Google is a corporation that will look out for its corporate interests not the interests of is audience and so we need government to protect our ability to access all information.

Sarah Campbell

So when it comes to mobile office tools we must be aware of the time at home we are devoting to using these tools for unpaid overtime at home.  But that is not the point of this article, the main focus is the capabilities these technologies have to invade our privacy.  Recently a high school in Pennsylvania had a serious privacy breach with its students, on school issued laptops.

The school issued laptops had build in webcams which had the ability to be turned on when reported lost or stolen.   That means the laptop camera would turn on and capture everything without the knowledge or control of the user.  The high school administration is being sued because the laptop camera was activated when it was not reported stolen or missing and was purposely used to capture a student conducting inappropriate activities which was used as evidence against them.

Now I admit this is an extreme case but it is something to consider.  We take our office tools everywhere and maybe we shouldn’t be bringing it into our home when we are unaware of the capabilities of new technology.  I had no clue a laptop webcam could be activated without my control but now I know.  Its something to consider if you leave your laptop open in your home or bedroom.  I’m not saying your boss is spying n you but it’s still a capability of the technology and we need to be prepared nad break habits that leave our privacy open for evasion.

Sarah Campbell

“Publication is a self-invasion of privacy. The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.”

Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan being an extremist when it comes to the internet makes a valid statement because I do believe that the more information we put about ourselves on the Web, the less we will be recognized. We may become just like everyone else and all do the same things because we could be categorized on our special interests. That is an extreme however.

The more information one shares over the internet, the more we get connected with the world, and the more we get pushed into everyone else’s mind set. Therefore our privacy has gone away completely. We express everything through technologies which then organizations and unknown people find our information and categories us. Our privacy has been officially taken and we are somewhat responsible for this since we choose to use these technologies.

- Marc Blanchard