Seven Ways You Can Legally Spy On Your Employees
Do you worry about your employee’s activities at work?
Perhaps you are concerned that somebody is acting inappropriately or in an unprofessional manner which could lead to a lawsuit or a lost customer. At the very least you are worried that they are goofing off while they are at work.
However, when you’ve approached that staff member about their actions they say that there’s no problem.
You can’t go to the client because it might show a lack of trust in your staff. The other party may not say anything about any form of harassment because they are too ashamed.
What can you do?
One measure you could take is to use a surveillance camera or spy camera and put staff member under surveillance.
You aren’t alone. According to a American Managers Association survey most managers carry out surveillance of some kind of varying levels of legality.
So what is the difference between illegal surveillance and legal surveillance?
Like many things it really depends on where you are. In the US you’re allowed to watch employees with wireless spy cameras or hidden spy cameras, monitor their computer work and track their location with a GPS system just as long as you tell employees that you will be watching them.
However, if you’re in the UK or other European countries you may find rules are tougher and you are often required to get workers’ written consent before you start monitoring web activities and emails and watching them with a surveillance camera.
So how can you legally spy on employees?
The traditional method of surveillance is phone tapping and the use of a surveillance camera to watch employees.
While there is nothing wrong with these methods they are probably the trickiest legally as there are a whole lot of legal issues to get around.
Legally recording someone’s voice using a wireless spy camera or hidden spy camera will put you on shaky ground as most courts view it as a invasion of privacy.
You are also not allowed to put a surveillance camera in a room where people are getting changed.
If you’re running a courier service or a sales company where you supply the vehicles and you’re worried that staff may be using the cars in their personal time too often then you have another option a GPS tracker or GPS logger.
These cool spy gadgets are easy enough to buy, or you can make these spy gadgets with little more than a mobile phone and a few parts from radio shack.
Perhaps the fastest-growing method of surveillance though is monitoring staff activities on the computer. This is easier to do than you think and you should be able to monitor staff emails and their website trips with no special software at the network stage.
However, if you are especially concerned about one particular worker’s actions on the computer and you want to check up on what they are up to you could fall back on spyware or a keylogger.
Both spyware and keyloggers are illegal to install but are very hard, if not impossible to detect, reducing the risk of such an exercise.
Keyloggers can be emailed to staff. They will automatically and secretly install themselves on a worker’s computer once the worker opens the email. It will then keep a track of all of the keys a worker hits which can be reviewed at any stage.
Spyware works in a similar way, but will keep a log of websites an employee visits.
So if you are concerned about employee activity at work why not install a wireless spy camera or surveillance camera and make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to.
In many cases its legal and it could mean the difference between a lawsuit and a profitable business.
Rose Li is the PR Manager for Chinavasion.com. Chinavasion.com is the world’s leading online drop ship wholesaler for MP4 players and other consumer electronics. Accredited by Validated Site, ScanAlert, and Verisign, and listed in all the leading B2B directories, Chinavasion.com is the market leading online wholesale electronics shop for eBay dropship sellers and importers worldwide. For more details visit: http://www.chinavasion.com/
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March 31st, 2010 at 12:12 am
Keyloggers can be emailed to staff. They will automatically and secretly install themselves on a worker’s computer once the worker opens the email. It will then keep a track of all of the keys a worker hits which can be reviewed at any stage.1GB recording equipment ,1GB spy pen ,1GB electronic pen ,1GB Digital Pen