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22 n e w h a v e n B I Z | O c t o b e r 2 0 2 2 | n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m F O C U S : C y b e r s e c u r i t y Watching Workers Remote monitoring of employees raises privacy concerns By Liese Klein A lthough more of us are back in the office in recent months, remote work appears to be here to stay. But the new normal of home offices and work-from-home days brings with it a host of issues around the role of electronic monitor- ing as employers struggle with main- taining productivity. "Electronic monitoring is not com- pletely new… but monitoring us in our home environment is newer," said Carrie Bulger, a professor of psychology at Quinnipiac University who specializ- es in organizational dynamics. "Bound- aries have been sort of blurry, and they are becoming blurrier and blurrier with more technology with computers at home and internet access." Bulger studies how technology like smartphones and other mobile devices impact boundaries between work and home and how managers can navi- gate these new boundaries. With the evolution of tracking soware and the pandemic-driven trend of remote work, those boundaries are in constant flux, she said. e key to creating a monitoring policy for remote workers is clear and direct communication from employers, Bulger said. "Monitoring can be viewed in dif- ferent ways," Bulger said. "As long as it is explained well and not done in an intrusive way, it can be fine. But if peo- ple don't know they're being monitored, then that is a certain breach of privacy." Issues around productivity at home are a rising concern among employers as allowing remote work becomes the cost of doing business at many com- panies even as the pandemic fades, according to experts. Despite "return-to-the-office" campaigns at many companies, only an average of 47.5 percent of workers were swiping into workplaces nation- wide as of mid-September, compared with numbers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data tracked by security firm Kastle Systems reported in the Washington Post. e increased adoption of remote work has resulted in steady or in- creased job satisfaction in most surveys of workers, Bulger said. "People are feeling that they have more control and more flexibility, which means less stress," she said. But increased use of electronic mon- itoring could impact employee job sat- isfaction in the long run, Bulger noted, adding to employer's retention and pro- ductivity concerns. A better approach than amping up monitoring would be to involve employees in addressing remote-work productivity issues. "An employer can explain the prob- lem – what is it that monitoring is going to be aiming to solve – and involve the employees in making some decisions about how to solve that problem," Bulger said. "Employees like to feel like they're being consulted and listened to, it increases feelings of fairness. So, to the extent that's possible, I think that's the best route." Ambiguous guidelines Workers who feel monitoring has gone too far are speaking out — if cautiously. Call center employees employed by Cigna in Bloomfield denounced the insurance company in May 2021 for what they considered excessively intrusive monitoring when they worked from home. e COVID-19 pandemic jump- started an existing trend toward more electronic monitoring of workers, said Jennifer A. Pedevillano, a partner in the New Haven office of law firm Halloran Sage. Employers have access to a range of technology from keyboard-stroke tracking and mouse tracking to video screenshots that record an employee's location during the workday. Connecticut's employee-monitoring law focuses on a traditional workplace and hasn't been updated since 2012, Pedevillano said, making guidelines around tracking remote workers ambiguous from a legal standpoint. "e interesting question becomes then, when everyone is working remotely, could you make a valid argument to extend that employer's premises to your dining room table, or your living room or your home office," Pedevillano said. "I think that's probably a stretch, to be honest." At minimum, employers need to give notice to remote workers if they are monitoring keystrokes or mouse movement, Pedevillano said. But the use of a computer's camera to take photos of an employee at home opens up a host of issues. "Let's say you learn while you're monitoring your employee at home and you're using the camera feature or you're using a microphone and you learn something about their personal life that would make them fall into a protected class," Pedevillano said. "And that employee is later terminated. Does that employee now have a discrimination claim because of what the employer learned?" Pushback against the use of cameras in remote monitoring has begun in the courts: A federal judge in August ruled that Ohio's Cleveland State University had acted unconstitutionally when it asked to use a camera to scan the Jennifer A. Pedevillano, a partner in the New Haven office of law firm Halloran Sage, says employers need to be aware of the potential legal risks around monitoring of remote workers. IMAGE | ADOBESTOCK.COM PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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