美國社群媒體職場監控之隱私保障研究──兼論對我國法制之展望

A Study on Privacy Protection of Employee Social Media Monitoring in United States—Prospect of Taiwan's Legal System

系所名稱：科技法律研究所
學位別：碩士
畢業學年：111
指導教授：陳鋕雄
社群媒體為今日重要之人際交流、互動管道。由於社群媒體之設計鼓勵使用者自我揭露，社群媒體資訊亦成為雇主認識勞工、應徵者人格特質、評估其適任性與進行背景調查之媒介。然而，社群媒體亦使勞動者之私生活與工作間之界線變得模糊，導致雇主於使用此一監控手段時，極可能超出監控目的之範圍，進而侵害勞動隱私；基於上述原因，勞動者有何手段於事前預防雇主之監控行為，或於事後救濟之手段，即為本研究之重點。
因美國於十多年前便已試圖制定專門性法規以處理勞動領域之社群媒體隱私議題，故本研究即以美國相關法規為主要討論對象。於美國，聯邦憲法、實體法、普通法等，皆無法完整因應常見之社群媒體監控手段。有鑑於此，已有多州透過密碼保護法保障社群媒體隱私，其除禁止雇主要求勞工或應徵者提供社群媒體登入資訊外，部分州亦進一步限制雇主要求調整隱私權限、成為聯絡人、進入特定私密群組等行為，惟其皆設有例外，指出雇主於特定情形下仍得為監控；於法律效果方面，多數州提供受害者民事賠償之請求權，然亦有州法並未賦予任何救濟權利，而可能影響雇主之遵循誘因。
本研究進一步考察臺灣之職場隱私保護現況，發現現有規範仍難賦予勞動者充足保障；於實務方面，亦曾有案例以事前同意全然排除勞工之隱私期待，未能考量勞雇關係不對等之問題。
總結而言，本研究認為，美國之州法規定得以處理現今常見雇主監控手段，我國相關主管機關即得參酌上開規範，更詳細地說明禁止雇主監控之情形，以及雇主得為監控之正當事由，以供雇主依循；另外，本研究亦提出監看手段、政策制定之建議，期能於勞動者之隱私與雇主利益間，達成適度平衡。

Social media is an important way for people to connect with others and build up social networks today. Since social media platforms encourage self-disclosure, employers may use social media to gather information about their appicants or employees to assess their personality traits, evaluate their suitability, and conduct background checks. However, social media also blurs the boundaries between employees’ private lives and work, this may lead to excessive monitoring and therefore infringe on the privacy of employees. Hence, this thesis focuses on how workers can prevent employers’ monitoring in advance or claim compensation afterwards.
Since the United States attempted to legislate law to deal with social media privacy issues in the workplace over a decade ago, this thesis focuses on relevant US laws and regulations. Constitution, statutes, and common law of the United States are unable to address social media monitoring thoroughly. Thus, several states have enacted password protection law to safeguard workers’ social media privacy. These statutes not only prohibit employers from requesting employees or applicants to provide social media login information, but some of them also even restrict employers from demanding workers to alter their social media privacy settings, adding employers as friends, or accessing private groups in social media. Nonetheless, these statutes include exceptions that allow employers to conduct monitoring under certain circumstances. In terms of legal remedies, most states provide workers the right to seek civil compensation, but there are states where workers are not granted any remedial rights, which may lower employers’ incentives to obey the law.
This thesis further examines workplace privacy protection in Taiwan and finds that existing regulations fail to provide enough protection for workers. Besides, there are still cases where workers’ expectations of privacy are completely excluded if employers have obtained workers’ consent beforehand, without considering the unequal relations between employer and employees.
In sum, state laws in the United States can deal with common social media monitoring methods, making them valuable references for Taiwan. Competent authorities in Taiwan can refer to the aforementioned password protection laws to provide detailed explanations about what employers may do when they use social media as means of surveillance. This thesis also provides some recommendations for employers to conduct workplace surveillance properly and write effective social media monitoring policies, trying to strike a balance between workers’ privacy and employers’ legitimate interests.