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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As an employee, you have specific rights of privacy at the workplace in accordance to the federal law of the state of California. You may think that an employer monitoring your emails and phone calls is a violation to your privacy rights. However, monitoring employees and their emails is allowed under the law. Employers have the legal right monitor all their employees’ phone calls and personal emails. An email is an electronic document that can be presented as evidence in lawsuits and government agency investigations, so it’s very important for any company to keep track of all information circulating through its network.

The main reason for employers to monitor employee communication at the workplace is to avoid legal liability and keep track on each employee’s performance and behavior. In order to protect themselves from possible legal issues, employers need to know how their employees are spending their time online. How else could an employer know if employees are wasting time on social media, online shopping, or worse- distributing illegal or pornographic content which could put the company in legal problems? This is why courts in the state of California tend to side with the employer in this type of lawsuits.

Some companies have email policies for their employees in terms of privacy, allowing the company to access personal emails if necessary. Employees must be aware of this policies and sign their conformity with them. If a company doesn’t have an email policy, it’s a good idea for an employee to get informed on how the company deals with privacy and monitoring; some companies allow employees to have a private mail account, however, this does not guarantee you can file a lawsuit against your company if they access your email account. Legally, the company has the right to access private email messages if they have a valid reason.

Almost anything you can do on a computer can be monitored. Companies have the right to navigate through personal emails if there is a compelling reason to do so. Software can be installed to monitor employee’s workplace activities, enabling employers to see what is on the screen, hard disk, and computer terminals of the workstation. Internet usage and emails can also be monitored. The number of keystrokes on a keyboard and how much time is spent away from the workstation can be monitored as well. Employers have the right to record and listen to your phone calls as work, although there are some legal limits. Policies on mobile phone privacy may vary between companies.

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An employee has fewer privacy rights in the workplace than they do in their personal life. For this reason, the employees should be cognizant of what information they display when it comes to the use of computers at work. Nowadays, bringing the computer into play has turned out to be a way of doing business each day. Consequently, various questions have emerged as to the legal rights of the workforce to using their work computers for personal reasons.

Notably, technology has permitted organizations to keep an eye on various aspects of their worker’s activities in the workplace. Nevertheless, although the staff may perceive that such monitoring is a breach of their personal life, this form of surveillance is permitted under the law. Arguably, the employees are motivated to do so over litigation and the enhanced role that electronic evidence plays in investigations by government agencies and lawsuits. Accordingly, an employee can be subject to punishment, or dismissed if they violate the policies of an organization concerning personal computer usage.

The use of Internet at Work

Recognizably, employers can trail the internet usage of the workers, in regards to the website visited, the time they spend online, and their engagement in other activities online such as using the social media. In similar fashion, an organization may prohibit the staff from using the workplace computers for their individual activities or deny them access to certain websites and the internet altogether. To that end, there is no noticeable right to privacy allegations against a company for restricting or monitoring the employees’ internet usage.

It can be reasoned that the law grants the employers the prudence to dictate the policies for the personal usage of workplace computers so as to ensure their security. Notably, if the staff are downloading programs and information on the internet, the workplace computers may become vulnerable to various technological problems and virus. The security may also be regarding the workers violating the confidentiality rules of their enterprise. Another reason is that an organization owns the data transmitted to and from the computers since they own the computers.

Email and Privacy 

If an organization uses an email system, then it is the property of the employer, and they are allowed to review its contents. For this reason, the email messages do not have a theme to any law regarding personal privacy. Therefore, a company is free to read and monitor the messages of their staff, with no restriction. The rationale behind this is that the employers are ensuring that the employees are not disclosing confidential information, and they are productive. Additionally, they also do so to decrease the possibility of any wrongdoing or misconduct by the employees. Hence, a company is well within its rights to monitor the emails of the staff.

Written Work Policies 

In like manner, nowadays, organizations employ written policies concerning personal computer usage. They do so to place the workers on notice of their stance on the use of the workplace computers for individual functions. Importantly, the policies are meant to support the corporations when they choose to punish or even dismiss a staff member as a consequence of using the workplace computers inappropriately.

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