For better or worse, companies do generally have the right to monitor you when you&#x27;re on company time. All companies that I have personal experience with, large and small, recognize that doing so aggressively may lead to lower morale, employee mistrust, or lower productivity. So, they choose how they monitor carefully.<p>Your primary agreement with the company is a trade of your time and skills in return for money, and the symmetric right you have is that you definitely do have the right to monitor and verify that you&#x27;ve been given the proper amount of money.<p>&gt; HR files could be misused [...] so why aren&#x27;t such files open for inspection?<p>In some places, they are open for inspection. There are laws in at least some US states that the company must show you your own personnel file, if you request it.