In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal with Facebook, a new Harris Poll commissioned by Dtex Systems found that less than half of the survey respondents are comfortable with their employers monitoring their digital activities in order to protect against security threats.
Only 45% of the more than 2,000 respondents are on board with being monitored at work. While 64% either somewhat or strongly agree that employers have the right to monitor employees’ digital activity on either their work-issued devices or their personal devices on which they conduct work-related transactions, 36% of respondents somewhat or strongly disagreed.
“Employees are starting to make their voices heard within their own companies, governments are enacting regulations such as the GDPR, and public and private sector organizations are recognizing the vital role privacy plays when it comes to gaining employee respect, support and trust,” Dtex Systems wrote in a 28 June blog.
A large majority (77%) of Americans, though, said that if the employer were transparent and let it be known up front that the company was monitoring employee behavior, they would be less concerned. However, 71% of Americans said they would turn down a job with a company that monitors its employees’ digital activities without letting employees know up front.
If done for security purposes and the activity data were anonymized, the majority of employees (62%) would feel more comfortable with their employer monitoring their digital activities on both work-issued and personal devices.
"The world has lost its tolerance for deceptive data practices, aggressive surveillance and privacy invasions. It's also become more lawless; Edward Snowden, Waymo vs. Uber and the insider who sabotaged Tesla are stark reminders of this reality," Christy Wyatt, CEO, Dtex Systems, said in a press release.
"This survey shows that Americans understand the situation and expect their employers to maintain a level of security that protects them and their jobs. It also shows that Americans who expect to have their privacy protected will reject legacy monitoring technologies that record their every keystroke and record everything they do."