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Congress takes up bill requiring notice of e-mail monitoring
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September 07, 2000 (Computerworld) -- Washington -- A bill proposed earlier this summer that would prohibit companies from secretly monitoring their employees' e-mail messages and Internet usage could get key congressional subcommittee approval next week as lawmakers rush to finish up business before adjourning early next month.
The U.S. House of Representative's Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution is due to mark up the bill, officially known as the "Notice of Electronic Monitoring Act," sometime next week and then send it to the full House Judiciary Committee for a vote. The judiciary committee's approval is needed before the full House can take up the bill.
An identical bill is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yesterday, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) -- one of the chief sponsors of the proposed measure -- said in testimony before the House subcommittee that the bill is a "first line of defense" against workforce practices "that can be nothing more than a blatant invasion of privacy."
The bill, which Schumer and two other legislators filed in July (see story), wouldn't stop companies from monitoring communications by their employees. But they would be required to notify workers of any monitoring of telephone, e-mail and Internet use, as well as general tracking of computer keystrokes.
Companies would also have to disclose the frequency of their monitoring activities under the bill proposed by Schumer and U.S. Reps. Charles Canady (R-Fla.) and Bob Barr (R-Ga.). Employers that engage in secret monitoring in violation of the act could face civil suit damages of up to $20,000.
But the legislation may have little impact on many companies, said Jeff LePage, director of management information systems at American Fast Freight Inc. in Kent, Wash. For example, his company already lets employees know about its monitoring practices. American Fast Freight also includes notifications about monitoring practices in the information that's given to new employees, he said.
Letting employees know that they could be watched can help head off inappropriate e-mail or Internet usage before it happens, LePage noted. "If you know you're being monitored to begin with, your behavior is already modified," he said.
Echoing that belief was Chris Christiansen, a security analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. He said the proposed monitoring legislation "just ensures that the unscrupulous companies that are . . . violating people's privacy [through secret monitoring] are reigned in," he said.
However, some concerns about the bill were raised at yesterday's hearing by Kenneth Segarnick, assistant general counsel at United Messaging Inc., a West Chester, Pa.-based e-mail outsourcing company.
Although Segarnick said employee notification of monitoring was a "reasonable requirement," he also said the provision in the bill that compels employers to state how often monitoring takes place could open the door to legal problems.
Companies may be inclined to tell employees that they frequently monitor employee communications or keystrokes, even if they don't, Segarnick said. But an employee who files a lawsuit against another worker and the company after receiving sexually harassing materials via e-mail could claim that the company should have known about the harassment because of its monitoring activities, he added.
Pervasive workplace monitoring is leading to problems, testified Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, a non-profit group in Princeton, N.J.
"Employers' efforts to prevent abuse often lead to serious invasions of privacy," said Maltby. "People are not robots. They discuss the weather, sports, their families and many other matters unrelated to their jobs at work." He added that many of those kinds of communications can be "highly personal."
For more coverage of this issue, head to our Focus on Privacy page.
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