Access to Email without Consent

elsien

It's a work email. For work purposes. Relating to the employer's business. And those of its customers. Which they have the right to keep tabs on.
And some of the emails I send/cc people into are an !!!! covering exercise which I'd be only to pleased to have the employer read because that's the main reason I've sent them in the first place.
It seems to me that unless someone is doing something they shouldn't, this is a real non-issue.

sew109

elsien wrote: »

It's a work email. For work purposes. Relating to the employer's business. And those of its customers. Which they have the right to keep tabs on.
And some of the emails I send/cc people into are an !!!! covering exercise which I'd be only to pleased to have the employer read because that's the main reason I've sent them in the first place.
It seems to me that unless someone is doing something they shouldn't, this is a real non-issue.

Its not an issue until someone has some beef with the company all I am interested in is if this is legally enforceable ?

robatwork

You're wrong.

Undervalued

sew109 wrote: »

Its not an issue until someone has some beef with the company all I am interested in is if this is legally enforceable ?

Yes, as everybody who has responded has told you!

Perhaps if you keep asking you will eventually get the only answer you want to hear but that doesn't mean it is correct!

getmore4less

Rather than saying we(employer) can access your work email, companies should give a limited licence to their employees to access specific work emails.

Errata

Misuse of company property and resources trumps everything. Was there much !!!!!! in your emails?

Nicki

My understanding is that if a company tells you upfront that they monitor emails or can access your work email account than everything is fair game, because you have no legitimate expectation of privacy as you have been told in advance it is not private.

If they don't tell you upfront in advance, they can still check your inbox for work related emails but should not open and read emails which are clearly marked personal unless they have been flagged by a monitoring system as for example containing material which is against the AUP such as !!!!!!. This is because the public interest trumps your limited expectation of privacy.

Personal privacy rights do not attach at all to work related correspondence only to your genuinely private correspondence.

Dr._Shoe

Spying on your emails and reading your emails are actually different things.

You sign a clause which says that your firm can read all the emails in your work related account, it is enforceable. If the firm spies on, or attempts to spy on emails in a private account then this is illegal.

So in summary: they provide an email account, they reserve the right to read any email in it. If they find that you are viewing emails in a private account on their computers they cannot look at these.

My feeling is that you didn't so much as sign a clause as sign to say that you are aware that they can and will read them so you have no defence when you are disciplined for sending an abusive email for example.

Only a complete moron would send an email with "a beef about the company" on the company's own network!

quinndelfre

Dr._Shoe wrote: »

Spying on your emails and reading your emails are actually different things.

You sign a clause which says that your firm can read all the emails in your work related account, it is enforceable. If the firm spies on, or attempts to spy on emails in a private account then this is illegal.

So in summary: they provide an email account, they reserve the right to read any email in it. If they find that you are viewing emails in a private account on their computers they cannot look at these.

My feeling is that you didn't so much as sign a clause as sign to say that you are aware that they can and will read them so you have no defence when you are disciplined for sending an abusive email for example.

Only a complete moron would send an email with "a beef about the company" on the company's own network!

No you can't. Work email is for work purpose so the employer has the right to read your emails. You shouldn't even be logging onto personal email accounts during work time, or using work computers to send 'personal' emails. That's why work emails are set up.

gettingtheresometime

If I kicked up a fuss about my boss reading my work emails then I would expect him to wonder what was in my emails that I didn't want him to read