Privacy please
Two employees of the Vernon Fire Department have been fired after a secret camera in the chief’s office caught them having sex there. The case shows that privacy rules lag behind increasingly pervasive technology.
The interim fire chief, David Lind, believed someone was illicitly rummaging through his filing cabinet. He installed a hidden camera thatrevealed rather different goings-on.
Both employees appealed their dismissal. However, an arbitration panel turned them down, in part, on the grounds that “the brief, fleeting loss of privacy by individual firefighters … was at the lower end of any range of seriousness of invasion of privacy at work.”
Really? If this wasn’t a serious invasion of privacy, we are entitled to wonder what might be. And are labour-arbitration panels the right forum for deciding such far-reaching privacy matters? But there are broader issues at stake.
This is not an attempt to excuse the employees’ behaviour. But where is the due process here?
In criminal matters, evidence collected by covert means, such as a police wiretap, would be admitted in court only if proper procedures were employed.
In the case of employer-instigated investigations, the requirements are different.
Privacy legislation gives management the right to use covert surveillance, but only when no other options are available, and only when it is narrowly focused on a particular employee suspected of wrongdoing.
Arguably, the second of those conditions was not met in Vernon. In a court of law, that might result in an acquittal.
However, there is another side to this issue. Some parents use “nanny-cams” to secretly monitor the behaviour of babysitters, if they have reason to suspect illtreatment of their children.
And family members sometimes install hidden cameras in residential-care rooms if they suspect their loved ones are being abused. This form of surveillance has unearthed more than a few instances of inappropriate staff behaviour.
Current privacy legislation is unclear about both of these situations. Neither has been put to the test in B.C.
In all of these cases, the issue comes down to a balance of competing interests and also the preponderance of power. In a workplace environment, almost all of the power rests with the employer. That argues for tighter restraints on the use of covert surveillance.
In the case of babysitters or longterm-care staff, the potential victims of maltreatment have next to no power. That might warrant a more lenient attitude.
But the main threat lies in the proliferation of these technologies. When anyone can install them, no one’s privacy is safe. We need tougher limitations than currently exist, particularly in protecting the powerless.