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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

• 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]