You can expect employee monitoring software to be installed on your workissued computer, which will allow your workplace to view every site you visit, every email you send, and even all the personal passwords you save. Maybe you have come to terms with the fact that expectations for privacy have been eliminated. It is probably not a good idea to give your employer easy access to every time you make a joke or have a bad day. What do you know about how most work laptops are monitored and what it means for your privacy as an employee?
If not in real-time, you are being monitored.
According to the security experts in this article, you should assume that you are being watched on your work laptop. For most of us, the fear of being surveilled at work is unwarranted.
When you got your work-issued laptop, it was likely to come with security software. Factors like the size of your company, the resources they devote to surveillance, and what type of information you handle for your job can affect the extent to which you are monitored. According to Wirecutter, if you work with health records, financial data, or government contracts, your employer can keep a close eye on you.
Your employer can see everything from G Suite to personal desktop folders.
Business News Daily states that a work device is not your property and that it belongs to the company. It is incredibly easy for IT to access your work device if you operate under the assumption that everything you do on it can be legally recorded by your employer.
Browsing history is not private.
Conducting personal activities like scrolling through social media, working on a side hustle, or searching for a new job on your work laptop is not a good idea. Joe Rejeski, CEO and founder of avenue X group, told Glassdoor that your employer's access to online behavior could come back to bite you. Even if your coworkers are doing crazy things on their work computers, you could be an example.
It's not a private document.
The reasons why you shouldn't use a company-issued Google account to store your private data are addressed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
It's not private to message your coworkers.
Does this lack of privacy bother you? It's a good idea to be careful about what you say over Slack. It is easy to feel like you are having a private conversation with your coworkers, but the messages are kept on a server and are easily retrieved. In an interview with Fast Company, Trevor Timm said that Slack has access to all of your chats, as well as any internal communication you may not want in public. You can use a third-party app on your phone for all of your conversations.
You guessed it, the desktop folders are not private.
Remember that your work-issued laptop is not your property. Rejeski tells Glassdoor that a company went out of business and decided that they didn't want to destroy personal data from the work computers. The former employees had no idea what happened to their computers or the information on them.
What should you not do on your laptop?
What does this mean for your laptop habits? There is a general protocol of what to avoid doing on your work-issued devices.
Passwords and private information should not be stored in keychains. Your employer could theoretically wipe them at a moment's notice.
Don't scroll through social media, or watch a show that could haunt you.
Don't say anything you don't want your employer to see.
Since your employer can see your browsing habits, don't search for new jobs.
Unless you want HR to flag the fact that you are working for someone else, don't work on your side hustle.
Don't try to remove the employee monitoring software on your own. This act of resistance will only call attention to yourself.
The best practices for your laptop.
Here are some things you can do to reduce the amount of employer monitoring.
Shut your computer down.
When not in use, cover yourWebcam.
To avoid being overheard, cut the cable on the headphones and buy a mic. Plug that into your laptop. You could also get a headset with a hardware button that you can use to silence it.
To make it look like you are working, type frequently.
Password-protected internet connections are important in order to protect data for both yourself and your workplace. If you handle sensitive information, you should never leave your laptop unattended in public.
The bottom line.
You don't need to think that human eyes are on you all the time. In the case of lay-offs, your employer has access to a lot of data about your daily activity that they can retroactively sift through. With the knowledge of how you are being surveilled, you can act accordingly.
In an act of radical transparency, I want to let you know that I checked the social networking site about forty times in the time it took to research and write this article. I have a work-issued laptop. At times, the irony escapes me.
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