In the current conditions, you should not expect your emails to be treated as private in your workplace. Even courts do not support it. When it comes to email monitoring in the workplace, courts will take the side of the employers.

Employers have the right to monitor the emails of their employees. You cannot even go against the employers as it is supported by state law.

Do you want to know about your privacy and your employers’ right? If so, then you can go through the followings to have a proper idea about the email monitoring in the workplace.

Email Monitoring in the Workplace

As the courts say, the employers are free to read the emails of the employees at the workplace until they have a valid reason or a business purpose not to do so.

Now many companies make the process legal by incorporating a special clause in their company rules. It says that the employee’s emails will not be private and the company has the right to monitor their emails. Some companies also ask the employees to sign the consent form to make the process simple and legalized.

Even if the company does not have such a policy, it still has the legal right to read the email of the employees. Newly developed technologies make it easier for the employers to monitor all the emails through their network without the knowledge of the employees.

Some companies also offer privacy to the employees and protection of passwords and emails of their employees. The rules will be different form company to company but the privacy of the emails will be protected with a strong legal action.

If your employers agree on your privacy and then read your emails then the employees will have the right to take legal action against the company or the employer. However, courts normally take the decisions in favor of the companies, especially when your employer has a compelling reason to read your emails, like to prove any sexual harassment.

How to Stay Out of the Trouble 

Prevention is always better than fixing a situation. You should use your emails at the workplace for official purposes only. Make sure that it is only limited to your close friends and family, if you have to send personal email at all.

You should not send any message that you feel will not be appreciated by your colleagues and employers. Always keep yourself on the safe side to avoid any possible hassles

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Technology is changing rapidly. Most people have appreciated the use of emails to communicate with their friends and relatives. Emails are commonly used to pass messages in the workplace. It is important that you ensure that your email is safe. You can even consider changing the password of your email from time to time. An employee should never assume that the email that are sent and received are kept in complete privacy from their employers.

Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), it provides for implied authorization to review employees’ emails. It also states that a company should state their policy of monitoring e-mails in the company handbook. Since new technologies are coming up, employers now have the options to monitor their employees when they use their phones, computer terminals, emails, voicemails and even when the employee is using the internet. Unless the employee’s company policy states otherwise, an employer can readily listen, watch and even read most of the communications conducted by an employee during the course of their work day.

You will realize that recent surveys actually show that majority of employers monitor their employee’s activity in the workplace. Employer monitor the websites their employee’s visit in order to prevent inappropriate surfing. The survey further shown that 65% pf employers use software to block connections to websites deemed off limits to employees.

You will realize that E-mail is not normally considered private if the email system is used at a company that is owned by the employee. He or she can review its content from time to time. In this case, you should not expect a lot privacy when it comes to email communications. Emails that are actually sent within the company are subject to monitoring. In addition, emails that are sent from the employee’s terminal to another company are subject to monitoring. These emails include those from Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so forth.

If this email is deleted, it normally retained in the memory. You will realize that emails are often backed up along with other important data from the computer system. If the employer’s email system has an option for the employee to mark their email messages as private in most cases, this does not always protect the emails. As an employee, you should read the employee handbook so that you can understand your employer’s email policy. If this handbook does not address this issue of email monitoring, the employee should speak with their employer about their policy for the emails and privacy.

It is worth noting that there is email monitoring in the workplace. You should be very careful when sending emails to your colleagues at the workplace. Your employer might review the content of your email from time to time.

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