No worker is perfectly productive at all times. Maybe you have a few minutes of downtime between projects, or maybe you really have to check out flower shops for your upcoming wedding at work because your Internet is out at home. Whatever the reason, you probably do at least a little online surfing at work—and possibly a lot.
Don’t assume your employer doesn’t know about it, however. Your own computer could be giving you away. Here are just a few ways your employer can keep an eye on your online activities at work.
By reading your email. You know not to send personal emails on your company email account, right? This is technically considered employer property, and your employer could be monitoring your email use. But that’s not all. Some employers are allowed to monitor even your personal email accounts. Companies that can do this generally have a lot of proprietary information, and are allowed to keep tabs on employees much more closely than other companies.
By tracing your keystrokes. Some companies can keep track of employees’ behavior by reproducing all of the keystrokes the employee has made on his work computer. Devices called “keyloggers” can be installed beneath computer keyboards, between the keys and the computer. This means that not only your company email and corporate documents but your personal email, browsing habits, Instant Message activity, and all other activity on your work computer can be seen.
By watching your browsing activity. Online browsers generally save your browsing history, and employers can enter your computer to see what websites you’ve visited within the past few days and even weeks. In addition, search engines such as Google retain information on searches you’ve made. You can minimize your exposure at work by deleting Cookies, clearing your history, and resetting your Internet browser before going home—but employers can still keep an eye on you. In addition, employers can install Cookies purposely to track your browsing habits and send the records to a remote server.
By tracking your eye movements. This one’s a little frightening—and as yet, it’s not common. But it’s still a possibility. Computer monitors can be set up with cameras that track the movement of your eyes across the screen. They can be used to tell where on the screen you’re looking and where you’re clicking—as well as whether you’re looking away. With this technology, employers could know when employees are busily working on their computers—and when they turn away to socialize.
By using the firewall. Firewalls can be used to monitor web traffic, allow or disallow programs to access the Internet, stop Instant Messaging, and more. They can also be used to block employees from accessing sites that the company does not feel they should be able to access. Forget about surfing Monster.com on your lunch break.
But firewalls can also be used to inspect your emails, blocking images and emails containing keywords the employer doesn’t approve of. They can also notify the company whenever a corporate document leaves your desktop—a precaution to prevent corporate spying and leaking information.
By watching your online activity—even when you’re at home. Many employees have blogs nowadays—and if you blog about work, you could be in serious trouble. And don’t think your blog is safe if it has only a small readership of friends and family. It’s possible for your boss to set up Google Alerts, a program run by Google that will send an email alerting him whenever new results come up for certain keywords…say, your name and the company’s name. With these tools, your company can stay informed of what you’re saying about it online—even from home.
Depending on where you live, your boss may not be required to notify you at all when he looks in on what you’re doing online. Some areas have laws requiring notification, but when that’s the case, most companies bury a tiny line about it in the small print of company policy manuals—so it’s not always obvious to workers. Make sure you know your company’s policy on personal computer use at work, and be sure you know what they consider “reasonable” use—some employers allow workers to visit news sites from time to time but not online shopping sites, or restrict the amount of time workers can spend on personal surfing. To be perfectly safe, save your personal computer use for your computer at home.
Surfing The Web At Work? How Your Boss Might Be Looking In