Indiscriminate monitoring is the mass monitoring of individuals or groups without the careful judgement of wrong-doing.[1] This form of monitoring could be done by government agencies, employers, and retailers. Indiscriminate monitoring uses tools such as email monitoring, telephone tapping, geo-locations, health monitoring to monitor private lives. Organizations that conduct indiscriminate monitoring may also use surveillance technologies to collect large amounts of data that could violate privacy laws or regulations. These practices could impact individuals emotionally, mentally, and globally.[2] The government has also issued various protections to protect against indiscriminate monitoring.[3]

Surveillance methods

Indiscriminate monitoring could occur through electronic employee monitoring, social networking, targeted advertising, and geological health monitoring. All of these tools are used to monitor individuals without the direct knowledge of the individual.

Electronic Employee monitoring is the use of electronic devices to collect data to monitor an employee's performance or general being.[4] The indiscriminate justification for monitoring includes, but is not limited to:

  1. The productivity of the employees.
  2. Legal liability of the company.
  3. Prevention of company confidentiality.
  4. Prevention of company data breaches.
  5. Prevention of workplace policy deviance.[5]

Electronic Employee monitoring uses many tools to monitor employees. One of the most common tools of Electronic Employee monitoring is the use of monitoring technology[6] Email monitoring involves the employers using employee monitoring software to collect data on every single time an employee comes in contact with technology in the workplace.[7] The software will also monitor all passwords, websites, social media, email, screenshots, and other computer actions.[8] In most jurisdictions employers are permitted to use monitoring to protect the company's assets, increase productivity, or protect themselves from liability.[9] However, the impact on privacy could affect employee contentment and well being at the company.[10]

Social Media Monitoring is the use of social media measurement and other technologies to capture the data individuals share via these networks.[11] Social networks may allow third-parties to obtain the personal information of individuals through terms-of-agreements.[12] In addition to social media networks collecting information for analytics, government agencies also use social media monitoring for public issues and other manners. The government uses the often public data of social media to conduct data collection on individuals or groups of people.[13]

Targeted advertising is a method used by companies to monitor customer tastes and preferences in order to create personalized advertising.[14] Companies conduct mass surveillance by monitoring user activity and IP activity.[12] Many companies justify targeted advertising by the social and economic implications. However, the indiscriminate privacy violations of producing targeted advertisements, cause consumers to have great concerns.[15]

Geological health monitoring is the monitoring of an individual's location and/or health through tools to collect personal information. Geological health monitoring can be conducted through smart toys, home surveillance systems, fitness watches or applications.[16] Technological devices such as, fitness watches could serve as a great tool. However, they do have privacy implications that could risk health data exposure.[17][18]

Privacy in the U.S. Constitution

The right to privacy in the constitution is most explicitly mentioned in Amendment I, Amendment III, and Amendment IV of the U.S. Constitution. The privacy of belief, privacy of home, and privacy of the person and possessions is included in the U.S. Constitution.[19]

Government protections

In 2007, the Bush Administration announced that they would issue warrants for the NSA conducting surveillance of citizens without warrants. This announcement provided further protection against Indiscriminate monitoring because it prevented individuals from being monitored without just cause.[3]

FISA amendments were passed to promote national security and privacy. These amendments require the NSA to complete certification annually. Furthermore, these amendments state that the use of mass surveillance information for any reason other than national security is prohibited.[3]

In 2020, Proposition 24, the Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act Initiative, appeared as a California ballot proposition. This act states that consumers can prevent companies from sharing their personal information. Also, this act can prevent companies from withholding the personal information of individuals through data collection for a long period of time.[20]

The Controversies of Indiscriminate Monitoring

There may be emotional and mental considerations in regards to indiscriminate monitoring. When individuals know they are monitored, it could produce stress, frustration, and a negative attitude. Individuals could feel degraded if their privacy is infringed on. For example, in the workplace employee monitoring if employees know that their emails and such were being monitored, this could stir up distrust within the workplace and increase job dissatisfaction.[2]

Research

Recently, researchers have been discussing the implications of indiscriminate monitoring, the public space, and the government's role. One argument states that the indiscriminate monitoring of the government inflicts on the right to privacy and results in harm to citizens.[21]

References

  1. ^ Kim, Bohyun (10 April 2017). "Cybersecurity and digital surveillance versus usability and privacy1: Why libraries need to advocate for online privacy | Kim | College & Research Libraries News". doi:10.5860/crln.77.9.9553. ((cite journal)): Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. ^ a b Smith, William P.; Tabak, Filiz (2009). "Monitoring Employee E-mails: Is There Any Room for Privacy?". Academy of Management Perspectives. 23 (4): 33–48. doi:10.5465/amp.23.4.33. ISSN 1558-9080. JSTOR 27747541.
  3. ^ a b c Posner, Richard A. (2008). "Privacy, Surveillance, and Law". The University of Chicago Law Review. 75 (1): 245–260. ISSN 0041-9494. JSTOR 20141907.
  4. ^ Holt, Matthew; Lang, Bradley; Sutton, Steve G. (2017-06-01). "Potential Employees' Ethical Perceptions of Active Monitoring: The Dark Side of Data Analytics". Journal of Information Systems. 31 (2): 107–124. doi:10.2308/isys-51580. ISSN 0888-7985.
  5. ^ Eivazi, Kathy (2011-09-01). "Computer use monitoring and privacy at work". Computer Law & Security Review. 27 (5): 516–523. doi:10.1016/j.clsr.2011.07.003. ISSN 0267-3649.
  6. ^ Smith, William P. (2017-01-01). ""Can we borrow your phone? Employee privacy in the BYOD era"". Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. 15 (4): 397–411. doi:10.1108/JICES-09-2015-0027. ISSN 1477-996X.
  7. ^ Jessie, Daniels; Karen, Gregory (2016-11-16). Digital Sociologies. Policy Press. ISBN 978-1-4473-2903-9.
  8. ^ Spitzmüller, Christiane; Stanton, Jeffrey M. (2006). "Examining employee compliance with organizational surveillance and monitoring". Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 79 (2): 245–272. doi:10.1348/096317905X52607. ISSN 2044-8325.
  9. ^ Mishra, Jitendra M.; Crampton, Suzanne M. (1998-06-22). "Employee Monitoring: Privacy in the Workplace?". SAM Advanced Management Journal. 63 (3): 4. ISSN 0036-0805.
  10. ^ Stanton, J. M; Weiss, E. M (2000-07-01). "Electronic monitoring in their own words: an exploratory study of employees' experiences with new types of surveillance". Computers in Human Behavior. 16 (4): 423–440. doi:10.1016/S0747-5632(00)00018-2. ISSN 0747-5632.
  11. ^ 2013 European Intelligence and Security Informatics Conference. [Place of publication not identified]: IEEE. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4799-0775-5. OCLC 972609048.
  12. ^ a b Kleinig, John; Mameli, Peter; Miller, Seumas; Salane, Douglas; Schwartz, Adina; Selgelid, Michael J. (2011), "Surveillance Technologies and Economies", Security and Privacy, Global Standards for Ethical Identity Management in Contemporary Liberal Democratic States, ANU Press, pp. 129–150, ISBN 978-1-921862-57-1, JSTOR j.ctt24h8h5.12, retrieved 2020-11-01
  13. ^ Loukis, Euripidis; Charalabidis, Yannis; Androutsopoulou, Aggeliki (2015). "Evaluating a Passive Social Media Citizensourcing Innovation". In Tambouris, Efthimios; Janssen, Marijn; Scholl, Hans Jochen; Wimmer, Maria A.; Tarabanis, Konstantinos; Gascó, Mila; Klievink, Bram; Lindgren, Ida; Parycek, Peter (eds.). Electronic Government. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 9248. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 305–320. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-22479-4_23. ISBN 978-3-319-22479-4.
  14. ^ Toubiana, Vincent; Narayanan, Arvind; Boneh, Dan; Nissenbaum, Helen; Barocas, Solon (2010). "Adnostic: Privacy Preserving Targeted Advertising". Rochester, NY. SSRN 2567076. ((cite journal)): Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ Juels, Ari (2001). "Targeted Advertising ... And Privacy Too". In Naccache, David (ed.). Topics in Cryptology — CT-RSA 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 2020. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 408–424. doi:10.1007/3-540-45353-9_30. ISBN 978-3-540-45353-6.
  16. ^ Wu, Min; PhD; Luo, Jake; Contributors, PhD; Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (2019-11-25). "Wearable Technology Applications in Healthcare: A Literature Review | HIMSS". www.himss.org. Retrieved 2021-11-07. ((cite web)): |last4= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ Maple, Carsten (2017-05-04). "Security and privacy in the internet of things". Journal of Cyber Policy. 2 (2): 155–184. doi:10.1080/23738871.2017.1366536. ISSN 2373-8871.
  18. ^ "Biological monitoring (biomonitoring): OSHwiki". oshwiki.eu. Retrieved 2020-12-06.
  19. ^ Anna Jonsson, Cornell (September 2016), "Right to Privacy", Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/law:mpeccol/e156.013.156, retrieved 2020-12-06
  20. ^ Gerhart, Thomas; Steinberg, Ari (2020-10-01). "Proposition 24: Protecting California Consumers by Expanding Protections, Ensuring Governmental Oversight, and Safeguarding the Law from Special Interests". California Initiative Review (CIR). 2020 (1).
  21. ^ Kasm, Saeb (2018). "Redefining Publics: Mosireen, State Crime and the Rise of a Digital Public Sphere". State Crime Journal. 7 (1): 100–140. doi:10.13169/statecrime.7.1.0100. ISSN 2046-6056. JSTOR 10.13169/statecrime.7.1.0100.

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