E-mail privacy

CNall

The owners of our company have been informed by our IT supplier that the use of software (ex. Snoop) to monitor employee's incoming and outgoing email messages is unlawful.
Can you confirm or deny this and tell me where to find additional information that addresses the privacy of business computer use.
Thank you in advance for your response.

deniseE

Unless there is some specific state statute...I don't know that is the case. It's about expectation of privacy...if your email /internet use policy advises EE's that they have no such expectation...you should be fine....

might be worth running by your attorney just to be sure.

CRS8383

I am assuming you have a policy that covers the proper use of email and the fact that the emails are company property and there is no expectation of privacy. That being said, my understanding is that in compliance with the "Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986" it depends on when you retrieve an employees message. Intercepting or having a program designed to intercept the message during transmission would be a violation of the act. However, accessing the the message from a post-transmission storage location is not a violation.

Most of this technology stuff gets well above my head. You might want to get your attorney and IT guys together to make sure you don't violate the act.

pork1

I CONCURR; our server is located in NC and we are in MS; our I Systems manager catches yesterdays e-mail and views it for busniess content. If there is none, he forwards the e-mail to the supervisor/manager for action. I pull the message, print it, and provide the e-mail to the employee asking for their help to understand the significant bussiness information contained in the e-mail. I also will tell them to notify their e-mail directory/addressees to stop sending non-business related e-mail traffic for it is hindering the capability of the company to do business. In person, I will also make sure they are aware of the companies' capability. They are agas at the thought that there is someone out there looking and reading their otherwise thought "private message traffic".

Making the ees smarter does help to cut down on our pain when we have to terminate one's employment over an innocent love message.

PORK

System

There are a couple of HR Executive Special Reports that might help -- free online, since you're a subscriber.

[url]http://www.hrhero.com/img/v3-menu-login.gif[/url] to the Subscribers Area of this website, scroll down to the yellow box of Special Reports, and check out the ones on privacy and the electronic workplace.

Hope this helps.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com