Before tech, witness testimony was the same thing.
Old boys club keeps it "verbal only", but someone blows the whistle and testifies regarding the conversation.
Technology didn't change anything. You can't have a private conversation at work. Period end of story. If you manage to conceal your communications, not only could you be violating laws (depending on your industry and relevant regulations) but you're likely violating corporate policy and in need of corrective actions.
It's a liability problem for a company if employees are circumventing documentation and potentially covering up crimes.
The way I see it, you have three options:
* Be rich enough to not work
* Get paid by someone who accepts the liability of your work and has the legal right to all of your business communications
* Be the guy paying other people who accepts liability for their work and has the legal right to their business communications
Spoiler, even if you're the last guy, chances are there's lawyers doing the same thing to you.
I was talking about discretion, not privacy. Those are two different things. Discretion is controlled sharing of thoughts, ideas, and information. Marking documents "trade secret" is an example of discretion. Trade secrets are not private information.
I'm not arguing that information should be unavailable when a warrant or subpoena requires disclosure. I'm arguing that doing the digital equivalent of bugging every conference room in the building is a toxic thing to do, culturally. If the law compels the bugged rooms, we have bad laws on the books.
Two employees need to be able to have a healthy, discrete conversation about working with the boss without having to worry about a transcript of the conversation pop up in a performance evaluation later in the year.
> Two employees need to be able to have a healthy, discrete conversation about working with the boss without having to worry about a transcript of the conversation pop up in a performance evaluation later in the year.
If you are worried about this, the issue isn't Slack. I don't worry about my boss reading my slack DM's - I'm well aware of what process would be involved there (my boss would be fired immediately, and wouldn't even have access without Legal involved). If you're worried about your company 'snooping' on you that's an underlying, unrelated problem.
Old boys club keeps it "verbal only", but someone blows the whistle and testifies regarding the conversation.
Technology didn't change anything. You can't have a private conversation at work. Period end of story. If you manage to conceal your communications, not only could you be violating laws (depending on your industry and relevant regulations) but you're likely violating corporate policy and in need of corrective actions.
It's a liability problem for a company if employees are circumventing documentation and potentially covering up crimes.
The way I see it, you have three options:
* Be rich enough to not work
* Get paid by someone who accepts the liability of your work and has the legal right to all of your business communications
* Be the guy paying other people who accepts liability for their work and has the legal right to their business communications
Spoiler, even if you're the last guy, chances are there's lawyers doing the same thing to you.