Chapter 8

Ethics &
Technology

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
“Big Brother is Watching You”

George Orwell, ‘1984’,

Part 1, Chapter 1

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 Ethics & Technology
The Employer Position:

As an employee of the organization, your productivity during your

time at work represents the ‘performance’ portion of the ‘pay-for-
performance’ contract you entered into with the company when you
were hired. Therefore, your actions during that time – your allotted
shift or normal work period – are at the discretion of the company.
Other than lunch and any scheduled breaks, all your activity should
be work-related, and any monitoring of that activity should not be
regarded as an infringement of your privacy. If you want to do
something in private don’t do it at work.

The organization has an obligation to its stakeholders to operate as

efficiently as possible, and to do so it must ensure that company
resources are not being misused or stolen and that company data and
proprietary information is being closely guarded.
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 Ethics & Technology
The Employee Position:
My time ‘at work’ represents the productivity for which I
receive an agreed amount of compensation - either an hourly rate
or an annual salary. However, that agreement should not intrude
upon my civil rights as an individual – I am an employee, not a
servant. As such, I should be notified of any electronic
surveillance and the purpose of that surveillance. The actions of
a small number of employees in breaking company rules should
not be used as a justification to take away everyone’s civil rights.
Just because the guy in the cube next to me surfs the web all day
doesn’t mean that we all do. Electronic monitoring implies that
we can’t be trusted to do our jobs – and if you can’t trust us, why
are you employing us in the first place?
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 Employee Consent
THIN CONSENT

If an employee receives formal notification that the company

will be monitoring all email and web activity – either at the
time of hire or during employment – and it is made clear in that
notification that his or her continued employment with the
company will be dependent on the employee’s agreement to
abide by that monitoring, then the employee may be said to
have given ‘thin’ consent. In other words, there are two options
– agree to the monitoring or ‘pursue other employment
opportunities’.

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 Employee Consent
THICK CONSENT

If employment conditions are at the other end of the

scale – i.e. jobs are plentiful and the employee would
have no difficulty in finding another position – then
the consent given to the monitoring policy could be
classified as ‘thick’ since the employee has a realistic
alternative if he or she finds the policy to be
unacceptable.

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 Ethics & Technology
Vicarious Liability:

“…a legal concept that means that a party may be held

responsible for injury or damage, when in reality they
were not actively involved in the incident. Parties that
may be charged with vicarious liability are generally
in a supervisory role over the person or parties
personally responsible for the injury/damage. The
implications of vicarious liability are that the party
charged is responsible for the actions of their
subordinates.”

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 Big Brother is in the House!
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when
you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen.
The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an
unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—
anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of
having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper
expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense.
There was even a word for it in Newspeak: face crime…" 

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Book

One,Chapter 5

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