Access to Email without Consent

sew109

In my company everyone has a corporate email account and everyone has signed a clause in their employment stating that they agree that in their absence that the company can access their email at will without need for consent or even to tell you afterwards that they have done this. In my opinion this clause is not enforceable as it is a clear breach of the European Human Rights Act and the company has a duty to protect both the sender and the recipient of email and of course the sender will not have agreed to these terms.

I would be grateful if some kind soul could either confirm this with me or tell me that I am wrong.

TELLIT01

A corporate e-mail account is for corporate use and therefore it's not unreasonable for the company to have unlimited access to it. It is not intended for personal use, which is what I suspect the OP is hinting at.
What is the company supposed to do if employee A is expecting an important e-mail from a 3rd party and it doesn't arrive until the employee has gone on leave? Are they to wait until the employee returns?

Undervalued

sew109 wrote: »

In my company everyone has a corporate email account and everyone has signed a clause in their employment stating that they agree that in their absence that the company can access their email at will without need for consent or even to tell you afterwards that they have done this. In my opinion this clause is not enforceable as it is a clear breach of the European Human Rights Act and the company has a duty to protect both the sender and the recipient of email and of course the sender will not have agreed to these terms.

I would be grateful if some kind soul could either confirm this with me or tell me that I am wrong.

No, it is the company's email so any email is either sent or received by the company. You and every other employee are merely agents of the company.

The sender is communicating with the company, not with you personally.

Apart for anything else, what would happen if you left, were long term sick or even died? According to your theory nobody else could look at the emails. All kinds of chaos and lost business could occur!

tomtontom

What part of the "European Human Rights Act" do you feel has been breached?

theoretica

sew109 wrote: »

In my opinion this clause is not enforceable as it is a clear breach of the European Human Rights Act and the company has a duty to protect both the sender and the recipient of email and of course the sender will not have agreed to these terms.

A similar thing happens, from the sender's rights point of view, everytime you email busy boss and the email is read by his or her secretary.

agrinnall

tomtontom wrote: »

What part of the "European Human Rights Act" do you feel has been breached?

Yes OP, do please provide us with a link to said Act, although I think we'll have quite a long wait.

Grumpygit

This sort of thing has happened today with a colleague who reports to me....went to the doctor and has been signed off - we wondered if this was going to happen but didn't know for sure so no out of office message or forwarding of emails was done.

As her line manager, I have been given access to her mail box as our IT is now unable to automatically forward emails to me and due to the nature of her work, it does need to be monitored or things will get missed.

We have also signed an agreement on the use of emails and internet and it states that the company have a right to have emails monitored, given that it is arriving at their servers.

I would also think that anyone in their right mind wouldn't have confidential or senstive personal information emailed to their work given that it is not a personal email address but one that your employer has given you the use of.

Takeaway_Addict

Come on then OP, what have you done wrong?

DCFC79

If you don't use the email account for personal use then whats the problem unless you have done so and been found out.

sew109

First of all this does not directly affect me I email personal at work but only from my Gmail.

I have been on several seminars where something similar to this has come up as the HRA includes the right to privacy and this includes email both for the sender and the recipient the fact that the company has supplied the equipment to do this on is irrelevant it supplies a desk for you to work at but cant easily film you there. What I want to know is if this policy is enforceable I don't think it is and online I can find sites that both agree and disagree with it.

If it is unreasonable for the employer to monitor as a matter of course then the contract would surly be unenforceable as the employee will feel that they are being pressured into giving up this right to get the job.

http://www.yourprivacy.co.uk/EmailPrivacyAtWork.html

sew109

Oh and how I wish my life was exciting enough to be bothered about people looking in my email