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Should employers monitor employees' Internet use?

Employees are employed by the employers for their office or factory on a fixed salary either on a monthly or a weekly basis or on a daily wage basis. It is the duty of the employee to work during the office hours, perhaps 8 hours or even less or more than that to the satisfaction of his employer. The employee is answerable to his employer only for the work or duty he has done for him and set right any mistake pointed out by his employer and finishes it to his satisfaction.

There is also a service agreement between the employee and the employer and it covers the terms and conditions that exist between them, about the termination of service, terminal benefits etc.

Apart from the time spent by the employee in the course of his employment, the employee has got his own private life which includes his enjoyment, entertainment and spending time in the company of his family members etc.

Having a computer at his home, equipped with internet facility, is a private right of the employee meant for his entertainment or education in which his employer has absolutely no control. If the employee is working in a computer equipped with internet facility at the office of his employer, the employer has got every right to have a control over the internet facility of his employee.

The office computer is the property of the employer and there is even scope for tampering with the office secrets by the employee. Again the employee may even use the internet facility for his personal use. Nowadays, the internet offers lot of entertainments like online movies and online games etc. Taking a further step an intelligent employee may even use the office computer and the internet facility for running his own online business. For example an employee may engage himself in the affiliate marketing business using the internet facility of the office computer.In that case it will be an abuse of process of law and misusing his official position to the detriment of his employer. Above all we should not forget that it is the employer who is paying the charges for the internet service made available to the employee at the office.Then it will even constitute a breach of the service condition by the employee and we may say that he is unfaithful to his employer.

Therefore, an employer may monitor the internet facility of his computer used by his employee at his office, whereas, the employer has no business at all or any right to peep into the computer used by his employee used at his home.

The employee is a free bird once he steps out of his office of his employer and will do anything that he wishes or to pursue his own interests, like blogging or writing an article in web site etc, provided that they do not overlap or impinge on the interests of his employer. Similarly, while using the internet facility at his home, the employee should also see what he does at his computer or internet is not incongruous to the business interests of his employer.

Learn more about this author, Ramalingam Subramaniam.
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