Indiscriminate monitoring

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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]

Contents

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]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Privacy</span> Seclusion from unwanted attention

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveillance</span> Monitoring something for the purposes of influencing, protecting, or suppressing it

Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.

Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance</span> Intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population

Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, such as organizations like the NSA, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is also often distinguished from targeted surveillance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnivore (software)</span> Electronic communication monitor used by the FBI

Carnivore, later renamed DCS1000, was a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. It used a customizable packet sniffer that could monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. Carnivore was implemented in October 1997. By 2005 it had been replaced with improved commercial software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic Communications Privacy Act</span>

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) was enacted by the United States Congress to extend restrictions on government wire taps of telephone calls to include transmissions of electronic data by computer, added new provisions prohibiting access to stored electronic communications, i.e., the Stored Communications Act, and added so-called pen trap provisions that permit the tracing of telephone communications . ECPA was an amendment to Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which was primarily designed to prevent unauthorized government access to private electronic communications. The ECPA has been amended by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994, the USA PATRIOT Act (2001), the USA PATRIOT reauthorization acts (2006), and the FISA Amendments Act (2008)

Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance enabled by the emergence of computer technologies.

Email privacy is a broad topic dealing with issues of unauthorized access to, and inspection of, electronic mail, or unauthorized tracking when a user reads an email. This unauthorized access can happen while an email is in transit, as well as when it is stored on email servers or on a user's computer, or when the user reads the message. In countries with a constitutional guarantee of the secrecy of correspondence, whether email can be equated with letters—therefore having legal protection from all forms of eavesdropping—is disputed because of the very nature of email.Morrison, Steven R. "What the Cops Can't Do, Internet Service Providers Can: Preserving Privacy in Email Contents". Va. JL & Tech.</ref>

Employee monitoring software is a means of employee monitoring, and allows company administrators to monitor and supervise all their employee computers from a central location. It is normally deployed over a business network and allows for easy centralized log viewing via one central networked PC. Sometimes, companies opt to monitor their employees using remote desktop software instead.

Workplace privacy is related with various ways of accessing, controlling, and monitoring employees' information in a working environment. Employees typically must relinquish some of their privacy while in the workplace, but how much they must do can be a contentious issue. The debate rages on as to whether it is moral, ethical and legal for employers to monitor the actions of their employees. Employers believe that monitoring is necessary both to discourage illicit activity and to limit liability. With this problem of monitoring employees, many are experiencing a negative effect on emotional and physical stress including fatigue, lowered employee morale and lack of motivation within the workplace. Employers might choose to monitor employee activities using surveillance cameras, or may wish to record employees activities while using company-owned computers or telephones. Courts are finding that disputes between workplace privacy and freedom are being complicated with the advancement of technology as traditional rules that govern areas of privacy law are debatable and becoming less important.

Employee monitoring is the surveillance of workers' activity. Organizations engage in employee monitoring for different reasons such as to track performance, to avoid legal liability, to protect trade secrets, and to address other security concerns. This practice may impact employee satisfaction due to its impact on the employee's privacy. Among organizations, the extent and methods of employee monitoring differ.

Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors’ activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the operator to infer their preferences and may be of interest to various parties, such as advertisers. Web tracking can be part of visitor management.

Computer surveillance in the workplace is the use of computers to monitor activity in a workplace. Computer monitoring is a method of collecting performance data which employers obtain through digitalised employee monitoring. Computer surveillance may nowadays be used alongside traditional security applications, such as closed-circuit television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital privacy</span>

Digital privacy is often used in contexts that promote advocacy on behalf of individual and consumer privacy rights in e-services and is typically used in opposition to the business practices of many e-marketers, businesses, and companies to collect and use such information and data. Digital privacy can be defined under three sub-related categories: information privacy, communication privacy, and individual privacy.

Corporate surveillance describes the practice of businesses monitoring and extracting information from their users, clients, or staff. This information may consist of online browsing history, email correspondence, phone calls, location data, and other private details. Acts of corporate surveillance frequently look to boost results, detect potential security problems, or adjust advertising strategies. These practices have been criticized for violating ethical standards and invading personal privacy. Critics and privacy activists have called for businesses to incorporate rules and transparency surrounding their monitoring methods to ensure they are not misusing their position of authority or breaching regulatory standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dataveillance</span> Monitoring and collecting online data and metadata

Dataveillance is the practice of monitoring and collecting online data as well as metadata. The word is a portmanteau of data and surveillance. Dataveillance is concerned with the continuous monitoring of users' communications and actions across various platforms. For instance, dataveillance refers to the monitoring of data resulting from credit card transactions, GPS coordinates, emails, social networks, etc. Using digital media often leaves traces of data and creates a digital footprint of our activity. Unlike sousveillance, this type of surveillance is not often known and happens discreetly. Dataveillance may involve the surveillance of groups of individuals. There exist three types of dataveillance: personal dataveillance, mass dataveillance, and facilitative mechanisms.

Targeted surveillance is a form of surveillance, such as wiretapping, that is directed towards specific persons of interest, and is distinguishable from mass surveillance. Both untargeted and targeted surveillance is routinely accused of treating innocent people as suspects in ways that are unfair, of violating human rights, international treaties and conventions as well as national laws, and of failing to pursue security effectively.

Network eavesdropping, also known as eavesdropping attack, sniffing attack, or snooping attack, is a method that retrieves user information through the internet. This attack happens on electronic devices like computers and smartphones. This network attack typically happens under the usage of unsecured networks, such as public wifi connections or shared electronic devices. Eavesdropping attacks through the network is considered one of the most urgent threats in industries that rely on collecting and storing data. Internet users use eavesdropping via the Internet to improve information security.

Search engine privacy is a subset of internet privacy that deals with user data being collected by search engines. Both types of privacy fall under the umbrella of information privacy. Privacy concerns regarding search engines can take many forms, such as the ability for search engines to log individual search queries, browsing history, IP addresses, and cookies of users, and conducting user profiling in general. The collection of personally identifiable information (PII) of users by search engines is referred to as tracking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyper-surveillance</span> Form of surveillance

Hyper surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens that specifically utilizes technology and security breaches to access information. As the reliance on the internet economy grows, smarter technology with higher surveillance concerns and snooping means workers to have increased surveillance at their workplace. Hyper surveillance is highly targeted and intricate observation and monitoring among an individual, group of people, or faction.

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. 1 2 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. 1 2 3 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. 1 2 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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