Your company provides you with a car. You are told only to drive in Dade and Bro

Question

Your company provides you with a car. You are told only to drive in Dade and Broward and only to use the car for business purposes. One weekend your family is going to the Keys. You get in your personal car and it won’t start so you take the company car to the Keys, which is in Monroe, for the weekend.

When you return to work on Monday your boss calls you in his office and asks you why you drove the car outside of Dade and Broward. You explain and then ask him how he knew. He tells you that ..."each company car has a GPS track system. The insurance company gives us a discount if we only drive in a limited area and one of the requirements is that we track our cars." He also tells you the cost of the insurance and trip will be taken from your next paycheck and you are lucky to have a job.

The above is just one example of the types of surveillance that a company might use in the name of Internal Control - to control costs and safe-guard company assets. They can track you with your company cell phone and look at the phone numbers you called. They can install video cameras. They can monitor every key stroke on your computer.

Please discuss your thoughts about being monitored by your employer. Do you think it is right or wrong? After thinking about it would you do anything differently at work?

Explanation / Answer

With the advancement of technology and tracking system development, companies have started tracking their employees. It is being done for the following reasons, among the many others.

1.    To prevent employees from misusing the assets like mobile, computer, vehicle and others for their personal purposes.

2.    To track employees for their whereabouts due to their nature of jobs so that optimum productivity is achieved.

For all above reasons, the intention of the employer firm is to track what their employees are doing and / or how their assets are being utilized. Firms show a noble intention behind it. As per my personal opinion, as long as the firm is not breaching personal or privacy of an individual, then it is not a problem. It is kind of advance surveillance system and firms can track through it.

But, breaching of privacy is not acceptable because no any firm has the right to interfere with the personal life. In above case, it is the employee who is using the office car for personal tour and travel. Otherwise, he would not have been tracked.

In the presence of such a tracking system, I will not use official assets for personal uses. Also, I will try not to sanction such assets for uses that can be tracked. I would like to finish office’s work in the office and at home, I will not entertain any office work.  

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