The European data protection supervisor has issued new guidelines on video surveillance aimed at minimising its impact on privacy and other fundamental rights.
They set out how to evaluate the need for video surveillance and how to conduct it without infringing people’s privacy and other rights.
The guidelines apply to existing as well as future systems, and each institution has until 1 January 2011 to bring its practices into compliance.
The publication of the guidelines follows a consultation draft published on 7 July 2009.
Assistant European data protection supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli said fundamental rights were at stake, such as the right to privacy in the workplace. Security and these rights were not mutually exclusive, he said.
The guidelines gave each institution some discretion on how to design its own system. This would prevent rigid or bureaucratic interpretation of data protection concerns from hampering justified security needs or other legitimate objectives, he said.
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Privacy is dead. Get over it. So says Scott McNealy, former president Sun Microsystems.
He’s right. Workplace privacy is dead and buried. Employers can and do read e-mail, eavesdrop on telephone calls, monitor Internet access, and watch workers with hidden cameras (even in bathrooms and locker rooms). Virtually all of this is legal. Technically, employers aren’t supposed to listen to personal telephone calls, but it happens all the time and you have no way of knowing. Some judges have found bathroom cameras to be an invasion of privacy, but other judges allow it.
As bad as this is, it’s getting worse. Bosses are now spying on workers’ home lives. Millions of workers carry company-issued cell phones. Every one of these phones is equipped with GPS. The technology required to track cell phones is readily available and not very expensive. The cost of tracking an employee 24/7 is only $5 a month. Employers often keep GPS tracking a secret, or tell the workers they can turn off the GPS when they go home and continue to track them. The National Workrights Institute (NWI), has already begun receiving complaints about GPS.
Even more serious are the problems created by company-issued laptops. Employers usually tell workers it’s o.k. to use them for personal purposes as well as business. It’s presented as a perk—now you don’t need to buy your own computer.
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