Phone Monitoring your employee by using a cell phone spy with cell phone recording.

Is your boss watching you at work via your office-issued electronic device? Probably. And is that legal? Yep!

Last week, New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein fired John Halpin, a construction supervisor who has worked for the Department of Education for 21 years, for repeatedly leaving work early. (Ironically, it turns out that he did show up early for work quite frequently. Maybe he needed a new schedule?)

Administrative Law Judge Tynia Richard found him guilty of giving false time records, the evidence showing that he left work early as many as 83 times(!) between March 2 and August 9, 2006. “This individual was getting paid for not working,” schools spokeswoman Margie Feinberg told The New York Post.

Where did the proof come from? The employee’s cell phone. It turns out that the company-issued cell phone contained a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device. It was also noted that Halpin’s time cards always appeared to be stamped from the same machine, though he was expected to work in different locations each day.

Halpin claims that he was never informed that the cell phone would monitor his movement when he accepted it in 2005. Does he have a case? Not really. Judge Richard stressed that the Department of Education didn’t need “to notify its employees of all the methods it may possibly use to uncover their misconduct.”

Frankly, I’m not surprised. You accept a cell phone from your employer and you’re shocked that it might be used to track you through global positioning technology? Please, I don’t think so. The guy was cheating. His employer found out using a perk they gave to him.

It seems like no reasonable expectation of privacy exists in the workplace, especially on employer-owned equipment like computers and phones. According to a November 12, 2006 Chicago Sun-Times article, GPS is used by eight percent of companies to track vehicles, but is starting to find use monitoring office workers. As it turns out, only two states — Connecticut and Delaware — require employees to be notified that GPS devices are being used to monitor their activities.

“To a certain degree, as long as it’s the employer’s tools you’re using, the employer rules,” Leslie Ann Reis, a workplace privacy expert at John Marshall Law School, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

In a 2005 survey of 526 companies by the American Management Association, three out of four companies admitted to monitoring the Web activities of its employees, half the companies admitted to reviewing their computer files and monitoring phone numbers dialed, and half admitted to using video monitoring, up from only 33 percent four years ago. By 2010, the video surveillance technology will be an $8.64 billion business, according to the research company Frost & Sullivan.

But is this all being done in secret? Not really. The American Management/ePolicy Institute says that 80 percent of employers using monitoring devices notify their workers that their for computer content, keystrokes and keyboard time will be recorded; 82 percent notify them that computer files are reviewed; 86 percent notify them that e-email is being watched; and 89 percent tell them that Internet visits are monitored.

And how much further will it go? Think biometrics, where minuscule radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, the size of a grain of rice, will be inserted under your skin, allowing an employer to track your fingerprints and voice pattern. And for now, anything and everything you do on your employer’s computer could be used against you.

“The computer system is the property of the employer and as such the employer has the right to monitor Internet activity and email,” Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute of Columbus, Ohio, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a March 12, 2006 article by Patricia Kitchen. “Employees should have no reasonable expectation to privacy.”

There is very little law regarding electronic employee monitoring, and the law that does exist is unsettled. The U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, federal and state statutes do not provide much guidance on privacy rights in the workplace, especially in the private sector.

The main statutory law in this field is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which “prohibits the intentional or willful interception, accession, disclosure or use of one’s electronic communication,” but it has a lot of exceptions when it comes to employee monitoring. Because the law is really just an amendment to the federal wiretapping law, it will rarely protect employees.

So why exactly are employers resorting to these measures? Ask and you’ll get a long list of reasons: to track down sexual harassment cases, accidents, violence, criminal activity and employee laziness. And in lawsuits, employers are resorting more often to electronic evidence.

At the time I’m writing this, a group of cab drivers in New York have haphazardly gone on strike to protest the addition of GPS devices to their cars, allowing the taxi commission to monitor where they are at all times. The technology will put video screens in the back of cars, allowing riders to watch their route or even television, and text-messaging devices in the front, allowing drivers to contact the commission for directions. Clearly, this technology is spreading.

Bottom Line:
1) surveillance cameras are everywhere — corporations, government buildings, schools, elevators
2) never take stuff from your employer (supplies and such)
3) remember that your employer can check out your emails (it’s their property after all!)
4) with blackberries, pagers, and instant messaging, it’s hard to take the “off” out of office!

Cell Phone Monitoring through the use of a Cell Phone Spy Software can prevent "sexting" in workplace by using Cell Phone Recording and Phone Monitoring Capabilities.

Just when you thought it was safe to walk by your co-workers’ cubicles without a blindfold, a new technological menace may be coming to a small screen near you. It took years for employer-employee etiquette to merge into manageable desktop rules regarding pornography and social Web sites. Now, “sexting” has arrived to threaten the workplace environment.

Too Much of Too Little

Speeding ever more quickly to a Blackberry or iPhone near you, accompanied by innocent chuckles:  well, you don’t really want to know.  And that’s the problem.  Too much of “too little,” as in the form of tiny but sexually explicit cell phone images and photos.  The screens may be small . . . but the pixels tell way too much of the story.

A recent story in the Workplace section of The Daily Oklahoman noted that a former waitress is suing a Hooters restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, claiming a manager used texting as a way to sexually harass her.  Well, you say  . . . that’s Hooters.  Right, and if sexual harassment were limited to places where skimpily dressed waitresses push hot wings, HR managers everywhere wouldn’t have big thick binders, training sessions and pending cases.

In the same story, a jeweler notes he handles all the potential “little device” problems by having his employees leave their cell phones in the car or the break room.  Maybe that works at a jewelry store where rings of a different sort are in order, but in most businesses, separation from cell phone is a death sentence.

False Sense of Security

Chris Pentella, in her blog, Workplace Diva, notes that sexting is recognized as a rapidly growing workplace problem in part because the technology gives users a false sense of security.  She quotes Shanti Atkins, CEO of ELT, Inc., a San Francisco firm that specializes in ethics and compliance training.

Atkins, whose firm is now offering sexual harassment training based on sexting, says it is “a huge, growing problem because the technologies are developing faster than companies can keep up.”

Mark Toth, chief legal officer for Manpower North America, says sexting is a real challenge for employers because they can’t yet monitor it, but can be held responsible for it.

“It has the potential to create significant legal risk as some employees appear to believe that texting is far more casual than e-mail or other forms of communication, employers can’t/don’t monitor it and, thus, the normal rules don’t apply — anything goes,” said Toth.

Time to Update the Manual

What’s a conscientious employer to do . . . short of confiscating phones at the door and proceeding backwards in the technology time tunnel?

Experts advise that HR managers, who are already updating their manuals to cover tweeting and instant messaging and social sites, include “sexting” as well, to eliminate loopholes like “that was just between my boyfriend and me . . . and no one else was supposed to see it.”  Oops.

Make sure employees know that texting and sexting both create a permanent record that could be used in a sexual harassment case.

You might be tempted to appeal to employees’ sense of virtue and love of Mom and apple pie, by asking them if Mom would really approve of sending nude photos or potentially misinterpreted “compliments”  over the phone.  Of course, you can’t always be sure of the answer to that one, so concrete and enforceable policies are probably a better plan.

Spy Phone Software for Phone Tapping and can be used Catch a Cheating Spouse specially Cheating Husband.

LITCHFIELD PARK, Ariz., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ — Retina-X Studios, LLC, announced today the immediate availability of Mobile Spy for RIM BlackBerry devices. Using this groundbreaking BlackBerry technology, users can silently monitor GPS locations, incoming and outgoing text messages (SMS) and call information of children or employees — even if activity logs are erased. Mobile Spy had already been available for the iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS smartphones. The new version for the BlackBerry is now on the market.

Mobile Spy runs in total stealth mode and no mentions of the program are shown inside the BlackBerry. After the software is set up on the phone, it silently records GPS locations every fifteen minutes. The entire text of all SMS text messages along with the associated phone number is also recorded. Additionally, inbound and outbound call information with duration of the call is recorded. Immediately after activities are logged, they are silently uploaded to the user’s private online account. Accounts can be checked online from any web browser without needing further access to the phone.

“Mobile Spy is a priceless piece of software. After having some doubts about honesty, this really helped set the record straight and confirmed my suspicions,” says Derrick, a Mobile Spy user. Retina-X Studios CEO James Johns states, “With Mobile Spy, dedicated GPS tracking devices become obsolete. The BlackBerry can become the GPS tracking device and capture text messages and call information at the same time. This gives parents and employers a very effective way to monitor the locations and activities of children or employees.”

This exclusive system helps businesses enforce their Acceptable Use Policy on company-provided phones. The software can also monitor teen or family phones. It gives a parent the ability to remotely monitor their child’s texting activities by logging into a website from any web browser. Another common use is to back up a user’s own cell activity as a record of all important text conversations and travel details.

Mobile Spy runs on all modern BlackBerry devices and is also compatible with the iPhone and other smartphones running the Windows Mobile or Symbian OS operating system. These devices are available from most major mobile carriers.

About Retina-X Studios: RXS designs and develops tools that let users monitor their individual PC, network or smartphone. Mobile Spy has been mentioned by CNN, NBC, CBS News, BBC, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reader’s Digest and other media outlets.

This release was issued through eReleases(TM).

SOURCE Retina-X Studios, LLC

Cell Phone Spy Software allows Cell Phone Spying and Phone Tapping capablities of your Phones.

Mobile phone monitoring software (or cell phone spy software, as it sometimes known) helps concerned employers, parents or spouses monitor a cell phone’s activity in real time. This type of software records activity occurring on a smartphone that has the software installed on it.

Once the small application has been installed onto the device, the program will start up automatically every time the phone is turned on. The application runs in the background, and remains hidden from the end-user. After the application is setup on the cell phone, it will generate a log of text messages, calls and GPS locations, The data from these log file are transferred to a private account via GPRS. If you wish to view any activity from the phone, you must first login to a private control panel from any Internet capable computer.

In order to be able to install the software, the phone must be compatible with the software. If you are using the Mobile Spy software, it will work with all iPhones, and certain Windows Mobile and Symbian OS based handsets. The software is installed onto the phone via a sync connection. After setting up the software, the phone will need to restarted, and the account information must be entered into the applications setup page. The phone will automatically be configured, allowing the software to transfer the log files to a secure account, which you can login to.

After the application is initially installed, an options screen should appear. This screen gives you the chance to adjust the various software setting, such as how often to update the GPS intervals. After the settings have been saved, the program will go into “stealth mode” (or hidden mode). At this point, the program is hidden, and there is no way for the intended user to know it is there.

Any time the phone is being used, a log file will be transferred to a secure account in real-time. Anyone who knows the username and password for the secure account will be able to view the phone’s logs from any computer with an active Internet connection.