ARTS & FARCES internet

We are by nature, curious animals. But what happens when this natural human instinct endowed by our creator to perpetuate the species, now results in employees accessing co-workers’ personnel files simply because they are curious? And perhaps, because they can?

“I’ll keep it confidential, of course,” sounds only too trite for any consolation in an era when privacy is assaulted from so many directions. When information is used in ways other than those for which it was intended and collected, it can more than symbolize information as power.

Middle managers with access to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications (like those produced by PeopleSoft, SAP, and Baan), are in a position to access fellow employees’ files—and they are appearing to be rather cavalier about it. In the month of August, I actually witnessed an employee of a prominent Twin Cities health care provider inform a fellow employee, that she had accessed her co-worker’s personnel file, via PeopleSoft.

How can the clients of this health care provider be expected to believe that this same provider exercises respect for patient record privacy—as required by law—when such a casual attitude toward employee privacy exists?

Why would this manager be so quick to reveal her access to this software? Such comments are not exactly conducive to the kind of community building that generates trust of one’s neighbors and fellow employees. The comment did however, compel me to consider questions we may all need to explore in the workplace.

1. Should all employers be required to have a written policy regarding employee privacy?
2. If your employer already has an existing policy, are viable and expressed penalties for abuse included?
3. What other steps are the most effective for protecting our privacy in the workplace?
4. Can merely marking personal information and papers “confidential” actually protect our privacy when it counts?
5. Who has access to the personnel files in your office?
6. For what reasons are these individuals permitted to access your files?
7. Are those reasons explicitly defined in a written privacy policy?

A more important question for all of us may be, can we continue to have a democracy without a fundamental right of privacy?