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You have no privacy rights in a company owned email account, ever. They own every word you type, every email you send. How hard would it have been for that emp

You have no privacy rights in a company owned email account, ever. They own every word you type, every email you send. How hard would it have been for that employee to have used his personal gmail account from his workstation?

ErrantX 16y ago
That is completely untrue I am afraid, at least in the UK, US and most of Europe. There are quite strong laws to protect against accessing "personal" email (or, rather, using it in court). (trust me :) I work in computer forensics so we have to know these things)
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  From a work account? It might depend. Our company's policy forbids those kinds of things based off disciplinary action. From the company's standpoint (not law enforcement) they own everything.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    Ah, yes, that is where it becomes a grey area. Legally speaking this is very complex; because clearly under investigation (i.e. civil discovery) work email will be accessed. How they can use that mail then becomes difficult; UK courts will pretty much summarily reject anything with overly personal communication - no matter what the source - unless the personal communication is directly relevant to the case. US courts are more lax but similar. From the company's standpoint (not law enforcement) they own everything They like to claim so :) The distinction that happens is that the company could turn to you and say "we have evidence of you using your company email for personal communication" and discipline you - so long as they followed all sorts of guidelines to make sure that they complied with the law. They couldn't, though, then say "we see you are having a sexual relationship with X at Y company...." UNLESS they entered the investigation with the aim of proving such a relationship (in which case I think they probably would need a civil discovery allowance). It's a legal minefield that is an absolute pain on a daily basis :) (I much prefer criminal matters where everything on a computer is fair game) [it's worth pointing out that if I am investigating a corporate computer and come across personal mail/details I am generally not allowed to communicate that with the company hiring us]

ErrantX 16y ago

That is completely untrue I am afraid, at least in the UK, US and most of Europe. There are quite strong laws to protect against accessing "personal" email (or, rather, using it in court). (trust me :) I work in computer forensics so we have to know these things)

redrobot5050 16y ago
From a work account? It might depend. Our company's policy forbids those kinds of things based off disciplinary action. From the company's standpoint (not law enforcement) they own everything.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Ah, yes, that is where it becomes a grey area. Legally speaking this is very complex; because clearly under investigation (i.e. civil discovery) work email will be accessed. How they can use that mail then becomes difficult; UK courts will pretty much summarily reject anything with overly personal communication - no matter what the source - unless the personal communication is directly relevant to the case. US courts are more lax but similar. From the company's standpoint (not law enforcement) they own everything They like to claim so :) The distinction that happens is that the company could turn to you and say "we have evidence of you using your company email for personal communication" and discipline you - so long as they followed all sorts of guidelines to make sure that they complied with the law. They couldn't, though, then say "we see you are having a sexual relationship with X at Y company...." UNLESS they entered the investigation with the aim of proving such a relationship (in which case I think they probably would need a civil discovery allowance). It's a legal minefield that is an absolute pain on a daily basis :) (I much prefer criminal matters where everything on a computer is fair game) [it's worth pointing out that if I am investigating a corporate computer and come across personal mail/details I am generally not allowed to communicate that with the company hiring us]