It’s easy to understand some business owners’ desire to know and control everything that goes on at their company, but it can spiral out of control. One woman on Reddit is wondering whether that’s happened to her after realizing that her bosses were spying on her personal office with a camera that they haven’t told her about. Is it just a general sense of distrust towards employees, or something more?

Even if workplace surveillance is legal (which isn’t necessarily true depending on where you are), it can be quite an excessive and unreasonable measure. It was clear from their interactions that the bosses were definitely watching through the camera and also that they seemed to think that she wasn’t aware she was being watched. Read on to get the whole story and see how Reddit responded.

One woman started getting suspicious when she noticed that her boss was making comments revealing that he knew a bit more than he should

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)

When she found the camera being used to spy on her, she started to wonder what she should do next

Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Bernard Hermant (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Engin Akyurt (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Casimyrx

She started wondering whether she should have been informed and whether what was happening was even legal

Let’s start with one of the hottest questions – “is this even legal?”

The answer depends on where you are in the world. In the U.S., where the author of the Reddit post seems to be from, federal laws do not prohibit surveillance like this, leaving it up to states to decide what sort of surveillance is acceptable. A blog post on superlawyers.com breaks down some of the nuance of workplace surveillance law in the U.S.:

Federal law prohibits:

• Surveilling union-related activity;
• The wiretapping of certain activities, which has been interpreted to extend to audio recordings of conversations;
• Surveilling employees performing confidential or top-secret tasks.

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Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)

Differences in state law across the US make the issue even more complex and uncertain

Many courts also place emphasis on a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” so in many situations, places like bathrooms or employee lounges are considered off-limits. Most aspects of employee privacy and surveillance, however, vary from state to state. We don’t know what state the author lives in, but general legal advice (as well as principles of ethical behavior) dictates that the right thing would be to inform employees that they are being surveilled.

Two things lept out at us in this case, and for other commenters as well:

• The woman didn’t think she needed to be surveilled: There are jobs where it’s probably reasonable to expect surveillance, like bank tellers, jewelry shop retailers, or anyone else working with valuables. However, the author emphasized that her job wasn’t one that might naturally require surveillance.
• The woman hadn’t been notified she’s being watched: Even after she discovered the camera, her boss pretended like he wasn’t watching her. This suggests that they wanted to hide what they were doing, which in turn suggests that they might be aware that they’re doing something wrong.

Image credits: Alan J. Hendry (not the actual photo)

Commenters had all sorts of advice for this woman. It ranged from level-headed tips to wacky schemes and everything in between

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