Big Brother could be watching you at work, and making a pretty penny doing it.
As more and more companies install monitoring software to track employee activities -- threatening to turn desk areas into no-privacy zones -- businesses that offer workplace surveillance tools are enjoying a boomlet.
Security cameras and phone monitoring have long given bosses a view into workers' daily habits. But now employers are going further than ever, thanks to technology that can capture email and instant messaging conversations, or record a worker's every keystroke.
Websense, a maker of Internet monitoring tools, has seen its stock price nearly double in the last year, though it saw some gains erased late last week. The company is scheduled to report third-quarter 2004 results on Tuesday. Other top players in the market include SurfControl and Secure Computing.
"I think all these companies are seeing great demand," said Katherine Egbert, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. "Lately, regulatory compliance issues, and deadlines for meeting those regulations, have been driving sales."
The US regulatory factors include financial reporting rules under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and health care privacy mandates set forth in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA.
Liability concerns regarding employee emails and IMs are also on the rise, as lawyers increasingly turn to computer records as evidence in sexual harassment suits and other legal actions involving the workplace. Even tech luminaries, such as Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, have used corporate networks to send email that proved embarrassing in court.
"Productivity is a concern; loss of confidential information is still a concern; security breaches are a concern. But...the number one concern is liability. Employers are afraid of being sued," said Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute, which, together with the American Management Association (AMA), recently published a survey on email and IM surveillance in the workplace.
"In almost every workplace lawsuit being filed today, email is being subpoenaed as evidence," Flynn said. "IM will soon be subpoenaed on a regular basis as well."
