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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\u2019 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\u2019s very important for any company to keep track of all information circulating through its network.<\/p>\n

The main reason for employers to monitor employee communication at the workplace is to avoid legal liability and keep track on each employee\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t have an email policy, it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Shutterstock\/Rawpixel.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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