Big Brother Still Watches Over Romanians

When I started to research and document my story about monitoring of employees at work and the protection of personal data, I thought it was going to be much easier to find cases and people willing to talk in my home country than abroad.

Paradoxically, it really isn’t.

While I hear and read about other Europeans who have claimed the right to privacy in court and have won, here in Romania people are scared and unwilling to speak openly about being monitored, taped or recorded or that their employers can always know what they talk about on messenger, email or the telephone.

Monitoring emails and online working has become widespread during the last decade in Romania. According to some IT specialists who produce monitoring software, at least 40 per cent of companies now routinely monitor their staff in the workplace.

Multinationals were first to bring this trend to Romania, but most of them follow strict guidelines and procedures that protect sensitive personal data, dictate who that information can be used and monitoring is conducted on the basis of agreed rules and consent with the employee.

There are some companies that do monitor their staff, unlawfully, without notifying their employees. There are also cases where it appears that managers and bosses have gained private information about workers and then used it against them.

Romanians are simply accustomed to being watched, as most were routined taped and followed by the so-called national security services operating under the communist leader Nikolai Ceausescu, who was overthrown in 1989.

The legacy of this state-sponsored surveillance can still be felt today, with Romanians divided broadly into two camps.

The first camp includes those who know they are being watched but believe it is normal – they most often respond to being watched with a shrug, saying: “I am an honest man, I have nothing to be ashamed of or to hide.”

The others are outraged by the situation, but are afraid to talk about it for fear of losing their jobs and attracting attention as trouble-makers. Here, it is hard to find another job if you leave one under a cloud or having caused a scandal.

On top of that, public confidence in the authorities and the courts is so low that even if people are aware of their legal rights, they often decide it is safer to keep quiet and swallow it, rather than make waves.

Because of this mentality in Romania, I am still struggling to find people to talk to me openly about workplace monitoring, and the abuse of information gathering that way.

I have talked to many people who know they are monitored, although they where not properly informed by their employers about that, and they disagree with it.

In one specific case, one employee claims she was forced to resign because of comments she made about the boss in her own personal email. She now works in another industry altogether, but still does not want to speak openly about her experience.

As I try to prove some employers are abusing legitimate workplace monitoring, I am told daily: “This is happening, but no one will admit that to you.”

I feel like I’m investigating mafia crime, or Colombian drug cartels, the sort of thing that everyone knows about but everyone fears – and so refuse to testify.

Yesterday I met with Alfred Bulai, a sociologist and professor at the University of Political Science in Bucharest, who believes that the attitude of my country-people is natural and to be expected.

He points out that people were never encouraged to openly discuss this problem and that the unions should take care of educating workers with regard to lawful and unlawful workplace surveillance.

“It is somehow unnatural, when you want to get a job, to begin to put down conditions in the contract, such as “I don’t want to be monitored, or even if I will be, I want to set limits”. Romanian people where not used to this custom before.

“Like in a marriage, not everyone signs a prenuptial agreement before. Most of the people operate on the principle that love will last forever,” Bulai explains.

Perhaps that is so, but it looks to me very much like any love between employers and employees is long gone, but they must still live together by necessity.

Dollores Benezic is a freelance journalist from Bucharest who is participating in the 2011 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

She will be writing regular updates on her investigation into workplace surveillance, privacy at work, workers’ rights and employment law in Romania, the Balkans and the European Union.

[ Tanja/Branka: please link the name Dollores Benezic to this: