Abstract
Throughout the longstanding debate on privacy, the concept has been framed in various ways. Most often it has been discussed as an area within which individuals rightfully may expect to be left alone and in terms of certain data that they should be entitled to control. The sphere in which individuals should be granted freedom from intrusion has typically been equated with the indisputably private domestic sphere. Privacy claims in the semi-public area of work have not been sufficiently investigated. In this article, the case is made that employees have reasonable expectations on privacy at work. Firstly, in a descriptive analysis, employees’ need for workspace privacy is spelt out. Secondly, a normative analysis explicates the reasons why privacy should be protected. The main thrust is to provide a more inclusive privacy concept and hence, a more adequate basis for privacy protection legislation and codes in the area of work. Contrary to prevailing workplace privacy protection, employees’ need for local privacy should be accommodated as well as informational privacy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
These concepts will be further developed in the course of the discussion and in particular in Section 3.
Excluded from the discussion is paid work carried out in the household by members of the household. Work conducted in a household by others than those belonging thereto could be regulated by formal employment contracts but is most often not.
It should be noted that some of these aspects discussed are not purely descriptive but contain normative elements. Drawing a clear border between descriptive and normative is difficult since many of the expectations are normatively laden. Employees’ privacy expectations at work are coloured by what we conventionally consider private in non-work settings. Each and every domain has at least some norms regarding personal data (Nissenbaum 2004:120 pp).
It should also be noted that the dependency asymmetry in between employer and employee carries implications for the quality of the latter’s consent in negotiations regarding work conditions (Palm 2007).
References
Allen A (1988) Uneasy access: privacy for women in a free society. N.J Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa
Ball KS (2001) Situating workplace surveillance: ethics and computer based performance monitoring. Ethics Inf Technol 3:211–223 doi:10.1023/A:1012291900363
Ball K (2003) Categorizing workers: electronic surveillance and social ordering in the call centre. In: Lyon D (eds) Surveillance as social sorting: privacy, risk and digital discrimination. New York, Routledge
Ball K, Wilson DC (2000) Power, control and computer-based performance monitoring: repertoires, resistance and subjectivities. Organ Stud 21(3):539–565 doi:10.1177/0170840600213003
Bennett C (2005) Surveillance, employment and location. Regulating the privacy of mobile workers in the mobile workplace. In: Hansson SO, Palm E (eds) The ethics of workplace privacy. P.I.E. Lang Publisher, Brussels
Bentham J (1787) The panopticon writings (edited by M. Bozovic, 1995). Verso, London
Bloustein E (1964) Privacy as an aspect of human dignity: an answer to Dean Possner. New York University Law Review 39:962–1007
Boye K (1940) Kallocain. Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm
Brey P (1999) Worker autonomy and the drama of digital networks in organizations. J Bus Ethics 22(1):15–25 doi:10.1023/A:1006199816737
Brey P (2005) The importance of privacy in the workplace. In: Hansson SO, Palm E (eds) The ethics of workplace privacy. P.I.E. Lang Publisher, Brussels
Clarke R (1994) The digital persona and its’ application to data surveillance. Inf Soc 10:2
Cohen JL (1992) Redescribing privacy: identity, difference and the abortion controversy. Columbia Law Journal 3
Cohen JL (2002) Regulating intimacy—a new legal paradigm. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Delbar C, Mormont M, Schots M (2003) New technology and respect for privacy at the workplace. Institut des Sciences du Travail
Elgesem D (1999) Privacy, respect for persons and risk. In: Ess C (eds) Philosophical perspectives on computer mediated communication. University of New York Press, New York State
Finkin MW (2005) Employee privacy and the theory of the firm. J Labor Res 26(4):711–726 doi:10.1007/s12122-005-1007-3
Foucault M (1975) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Vintage Book, 1995, NY
Fried C (1984) Privacy (a moral analysis). In: Schoeman F (eds) Philosophical dimensions of privacy: an anthology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Gavison R (1980) Privacy and the limits of law. Yale Law J 89:421–471 doi:10.2307/795891
Gerstein R (1978) Intimacy and privacy. Ethics 89:78–81 doi:10.1086/292105
Goffman E (1971) Relations in public: microstudies of the public order. Penguin Books, Hammondsworth
Häyry M, Takkala T (2001) Genetic information, rights, and autonomy. Theor Med Bioethics 22:403–414 doi:10.1023/A:1013097617552
Inness JC (1992) Privacy, intimacy and isolation. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Introna LD (1999) Privacy, autonomy and workplace surveillance. Proceedings of ETHICOMP the 4th International Conference
Koops B-J, Leenes R (2005) “Code” and the slow erosion of privacy. Mich Telecommun Technol Law Rev 12:115–188
Lankshear G, Cook P, Mason D, Coates S (2001) Notes and issues: call centre empoyees’ repsonses to electronic monitoring. Some Research Findings, Work, Employment and Society, Vol 15.
Lennerfors T (2004) GPS—guard, pathfinder or surveillance? MA thesis, The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm
Lever A (2005) Feminism, democracy and the right to privacy. Minerva—An internet Journal of Philosophy 9:1–31
Levin A (2005) Dignity in the workplace. Proceedings of Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB), San Francisco, August 3–6, 2005
MacKinnon C (1983) Feminism, Marxism, method and the state: towards feminist jurisprudence. Signs (Chic) 8(4):635–658 doi:10.1086/494000
Marx G T (1999) Measuring everything that moves: the new surveillance at work. In: Simpson I and Simpson R (eds) The Workplace and Deviance. JAI series on Research in the Sociology of Work
Merz Smith E (2004) Everything is monitored, everything is watched—employee resistance to surveillance in Ontario call centers. MA Thesis, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, Canada
Miller S, Weckert J (2000) Privacy, the workplace and the internet. J Bus Ethics 28:255–265 doi:10.1023/A:1006232417265
Moor J (1997) Towards a theory of privacy in the information age. Comput Soc 27(3):27–32
Nagel T (2002) Exposure and concealment: and other essays. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Nissenbaum H (1998) Protecting privacy in an information age: the problem of privacy in public. Law Philos 17:559–596
Nissenbaum H (2004) Privacy as contextual integrity. Washington Law Review 79:119–158
Orwell G (1949) 1984, New American Library, New York 1990
Palm E (2007) The ethics of workspace privacy. Doctoral thesis, The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Parent WA (1983) A new definition of privacy for the law. Law Philos 2:305–338 (December)
Persson AJ (2005) Applying ethical criteria for privacy. In: Hansson SO, Palm E (eds) The ethics of workplace privacy. P.I.E. Lang Publisher, Brussels
Posner R (1981) The economics of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Rachels J (1975) Why privacy is important. Philos Public Aff 4:323–333
Regan PM (1995) Legislating privacy. Technology, social values and public policy. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill
Rosen J (2000) The unwanted gaze—the destruction of privacy in America. Random House, New York
Rössler B (2005) The value of privacy. Polity Press, Cambridge
Scanlon T (1998) What we owe to each other. The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge
Schoeman F (1984) Privacy and intimate information. In: Schoeman, F (ed) Philosophical dimensions of privacy: an anthology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Simmel G (1995) Die Grossstädte und das Geistesleben. In: Kramme R, Rammstedt A, Rammestedt O (eds) Georg Simmel Aufsätze und Abhandlungen 1901–1908, vol 1. Frankfurt-am-Main
Tunick M (2000) Privacy in the face of new technologies of surveillance. Public Aff Q 14(3):259–277
van Damme K (1997) Ethical issues in genetic screening and genetic monitoring of employees. Ann N Y Acad Sci 837:554–565 doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb56900.x
Voukko R (2007) Interdependence and control at work: social issues in transforming care work with mobile technology. Proceedings of ETHICOMP The Ninth International Conference, pp 621–632
Warren S, Brandeis L (1890) The right to privacy. Harvard Law Rev 4:193 doi:10.2307/1321160
Westin A (1967) Privacy and freedom. Anthema, New York
Williams B (1994) Shame and necessity. University of California Press, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Palm, E. Privacy Expectations at Work—What is Reasonable and Why?. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 12, 201–215 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9129-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9129-3