Manager reading employee's emails

eth0_

Does anyone know what the law is on this?
Someone i work with noticed an admin added themself to the ACL of this persons email, there hasn't been any complaints about this person and they don't send personal mails from their work account.

I thought the law only covers employers to do this if there has been a complaint and maybe even then only if HR approve an I.T. person to look at the employee's email?

jesus_thats_gre

Management are perfectly entitled to read any emails sent using their equipment during their time..

grumpytrousers

eth0_ wrote:

Does anyone know what the law is on this?
Someone i work with noticed an admin added themself to the ACL of this persons email, there hasn't been any complaints about this person and they don't send personal mails from their work account.

I thought the law only covers employers to do this if there has been a complaint and maybe even then only if HR approve an I.T. person to look at the employee's email?

check the contract of employment. It's a grey area - don't think that there's really legislation to cover it, per se. However, if the contract of employment says that 'management reserve right to'...then they might be in the clear....by 'in the clear', I mean - unfortunately - able to get away with it...

eth0_

Hmm. Thought as much :-/
It's just quite violating that this person can read peoples mails at will, for no good reason. I know two other cases of him doing this.

It really is just for nosiness, there's no other reason.

madramor

use www.hushmail.com for your personal email in work
totally secure from admin staff

eth0_

We use webmail for personal stuff, i'm an I.T. person so I can access whatever I want, so can the person involved, it's just creepy that he's reading our mails.

AARRRGH

Employers are completely entitled to read the e-mails you send from your work PC.

Why would they not be entitled to do this? I can think of no reason.

HelterSkelter

If they are going to read your emails they should imform the employee. A lot of employees are not aware this can be done.

kippy

If they are going to read your emails they should imform the employee. A lot of employees are not aware this can be done.

There cant be many employees out there today that are not aware that their company can access their company mail.......
By the way its also possible to "view" mail from other sources - gmail-hotmail etc and websites visited as well as files downloaded etc etc-depending on the software/hardware used by IT.
The reason they can and sometimes do view these records is because you are accessing them on company owned hardware and software-however any company that does this usually has themselves covered by outlining it in their contracts of employments and generally IT would not monitor anyone unless requested to do so from HR.
Kippy

Eoin

dublindude wrote:

Employers are completely entitled to read the e-mails you send from your work PC.

Why would they not be entitled to do this? I can think of no reason.

You are dead right, but the assumption is probably that e-mail is subject to the same privacy that paper mail is. In fact, can an employer open a letter addressed to an employee?

kippy

I am not going to read the whole document but I assume many questions that will arise in this post have already been answered here:
http://www.oasis.gov.ie/public_utilities/telecommunications/surveillance_of_electronic_communications_in_the_workplace.html

Catch_22

eth0_ wrote:

Does anyone know what the law is on this?
Someone i work with noticed an admin added themself to the ACL of this persons email, there hasn't been any complaints about this person and they don't send personal mails from their work account.

I thought the law only covers employers to do this if there has been a complaint and maybe even then only if HR approve an I.T. person to look at the employee's email?

yes management can read your mail if they see fit, as people have said usually when there are problems, however this guy isnt management hes and admin.
if he has a problem he escalates it to management. it would be interesting what view management would take of an admin doing this of his own back, i dont think they would be partiucurlarly supportive.

c22

kippy

I'd be of the same opinion as Catch_22
The guy is in fact abusing his position.