Guide to Slack import and export tools

>employers are given an exemption for calls made “in the ordinary course of business.” Courts interpret this to mean that employers can eavesdrop on all business telephone calls but cannot listen to or record messages it knows are personal.

Also:

>ECPA also applies to audio monitoring of the workplace. Employers can install recording devices in any location that is used primarily for work. But employers may not conduct audio recording of nonworking areas such as cafeterias, break rooms, or locker rooms. In practice, this means little because employers are not required to notify employees that they are being recorded and employees are unlikely to discover the hidden microphone.

So there is an obvious legal distinction between communications which are intended to be work related and those which are not. In your cafeteria example, no, they should not (assuming this article is the entire story.) However, your slack messages are not considered the same as a cafeteria conversation.

Again, I'm not a lawyer and have zero real knowledge here, but I think it's silly to expect privacy in your work provided messaging system.

> When you are reviewing an auditable log of information related to an employee, you don't necessarily want to have to ask the employee for that information, nor do you necessarily want them to know you're reviewing it.

You just answered your own question.

You might not want them to know you're reviewing it but they most certainly do want to know that you are.

Sigh

Totalitarianism is a socio-political paradigm, not a stand-in word to describe things you think constitute surveillance in the context of a business. Companies require the capability to maintain auditable records of employee activity on the information channels they own and manage. Your company is not recording your activity in the privacy of your home or on the street, it's protecting itself and other employees from potentially problematic abuse scenarios. These requirements are also directly imposed by a variety of regulations in various countries.

When you twist the meaning of loaded words like this to describe things you don't like, you make it very difficult for people to get past the hyperbole and take you seriously. You're conflating assaults on personal rights with the routine and mundane business practice of keeping auditable logs.

> I avoid workplaces which force shit like this. So do all the good developers I know, because they're people who can afford to be choosy.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, because almost all the good developers I know work in environments like this. So where does trading these anecdotes leave us? Do you really believe most competent software engineers don't work in companies that do this? In most cases, that means the company is actively breaking the law, or at best making adherence with the law very difficult and error-prone.