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Why should an employer not be able to read messages that employees send to one another for the purpose of doing their job?

dawnerd 8y ago
Well if its called a private chat... It's kind of expected that it'd be private.
- BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
  Slack actually uses the term “Direct Message”, so there’s no textual expectation of privacy.
freedomben 8y ago
Perfectly fair question. I view it much like having a conversation in the hallway or by the watercooler. It would be creepy and weird, and unexpected, to have microphones and cameras all over the office so the boss can record your conversations and eavesdrop whenever they like. It also screams micro-management if the boss needs to drop in, even if you are just using it "for the purpose of doing [your] job." I tend to feel that if you trust your employees so little, then you should just fire them. Conversely if my employer trusted me so little, I should probably quit. Where I would probably make an exception would be if one of the employees filed an HR complaint or something, then I think looking at the existing record would be fine. But, it should be limited in scope to that incident.
- cozicoolmail 8y ago
  I personally do not think it is a right of an employee to have privacy when having a discussion with another employee, over a work medium, about a work related matter. Just because using the ability to read private messages screams micro-management, it doesn't mean that it's not occasionally necessary to discover instances of harassment or abuse.
deleted 8y ago
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donaltroddyn 8y ago
Here in Ireland, we have pretty strict legislation around surveillance in the workplace. Any monitoring has to fulfil the three requirements of being necessary, legitimate, and proportional. It has already been demonstrated that monitoring employee email to ensure that confidential information is not being shared is not consider proportionate (in a normal workplace), so I don't believe that monitoring direct messages in Slack would be lawful here.

dawnerd 8y ago

Well if its called a private chat... It's kind of expected that it'd be private.

BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
Slack actually uses the term “Direct Message”, so there’s no textual expectation of privacy.

freedomben 8y ago

Perfectly fair question. I view it much like having a conversation in the hallway or by the watercooler. It would be creepy and weird, and unexpected, to have microphones and cameras all over the office so the boss can record your conversations and eavesdrop whenever they like. It also screams micro-management if the boss needs to drop in, even if you are just using it "for the purpose of doing [your] job." I tend to feel that if you trust your employees so little, then you should just fire them. Conversely if my employer trusted me so little, I should probably quit. Where I would probably make an exception would be if one of the employees filed an HR complaint or something, then I think looking at the existing record would be fine. But, it should be limited in scope to that incident.

cozicoolmail 8y ago
I personally do not think it is a right of an employee to have privacy when having a discussion with another employee, over a work medium, about a work related matter. Just because using the ability to read private messages screams micro-management, it doesn't mean that it's not occasionally necessary to discover instances of harassment or abuse.

deleted 8y ago

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donaltroddyn 8y ago

Here in Ireland, we have pretty strict legislation around surveillance in the workplace. Any monitoring has to fulfil the three requirements of being necessary, legitimate, and proportional. It has already been demonstrated that monitoring employee email to ensure that confidential information is not being shared is not consider proportionate (in a normal workplace), so I don't believe that monitoring direct messages in Slack would be lawful here.