As you may be already aware of, workplace surveillance has become a widely discussed moral and ethical issue recently. The theory of monitoring workers has received both high praise and harsh criticism from virtually all members of the workforce. Recent advancements in technology have given all levels of management the ability to virtually know the whereabouts of an employee on company property at any given time. Some call it an invasion of privacy for the common worker, while others see it as a valuable tool required for effective management of a company. Workplace surveillance comes in many forms and does not require active participation from employees. You can be monitored immediately as you pick up the phone, sign on to your computer, send an email or even when you go to the bathroom. A widely discussed element of surveillance in the workplace is computer based monitoring. As the number of employees using computers has increased along with the dependence of computers, so has the need to monitor activities. The most universal (common) form of computer workplace surveillance is packet sniffing.

Although the origins of packet sniffers are unknown because the name cannot

Each packet is ‘electronically stamped with the information needed to deliver the message to the intended recipient and reconstruct the data when all of the packets arrive at their destination2. The sniffer has the capability of ‘capturing every packet on a network’3 and decoding it to relay information to system administrators what is being conducted at any computer terminal at any given time. Sniffer programs, depending on how it is written can provide information that can range from how many times an application was launched, to real-time images of a terminals screen. All that is required for a sniffer to work is the Internet Protocol (I.P) address of the terminal computer. In addition to recording information, sniffers can also filter what type of information is being transmitted over a network, such as offensive or illegal material which is an issue that is a concern among many employers in North America. The sniffer accomplishes this by simply analyzing the packets during transmission and blocks it from being sent over the network.

Another disadvantage of sniffer programs are the negative effects it has on the workplace. As stated earlier, the ability for sniffers to take information transmitted over networks and relay it to upper levels of management has created an up-roar recently. Some workers have expressed feelings of distrust as everything that is conducted on their computers whether job-related or private can be obtained and logged, which in some cases can be used during evaluations and has led to countless well documented firings. Since the inception of surveillance as a management technique, there has been studies conducted that have shown a decline in employee morale, as well as increases in lateness and absenteeism which indicate the extent of worker dissatisfaction. On the other hand, surveillance has also shown production increases, which is why many corporations have chosen to adopt this technique. Workplace surveillance, primarily sniffers and its

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