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Google allows G Suite administrators to monitor and audit user emails
- LatteLazy 6y agoI came here to comment that "of course" it was both perfectly possible and in at least some companies/roles/industries likely routine for them to do so. I am very surprised by the number of people claiming it is illegal or not possible. You should always assume your email (and the contents of your hard\network drive, your browser based activity, and everything you do, down to the key strokes) is being recorded and may well be being actively monitored by your employer (or anyone else with privileges on the systems you use). Similarly, anything you delete is unlikely to be actually deleted. Your friendly local IT guy might be stealing your bank details or checking for people trying to unionize or just spying for a competing department. It's not "Nice", but no one owes you nice. Please act and plan accordingly.
- S_A_P 6y agoI think that people dont realize that they shouldnt use work email for personal correspondence. Its even less private than a free email service like Gmail. In the late 90s/early 2000s I was an admin at a fortune 500 company and people would move to different geographic BUs often. When that happened, we had to migrate their email accounts. The practice at the time was to robocopy their home drive and export/import their exchange mailbox. We would then reset their password and validate things were in order. I would never outright read someones mail, but you would be surprised what was at the top of someones inbox in their work email. Additionally, when robocopying their profile data you would see their internet history(each visited/cached site, cookies, etc). I couldnt believe the number of VP/C level employees that would have vast quantities of porn and shady history on their work machine. no judgement here, but if worker bees had the same content they would be fired without question. Do what you want on your own time or computer, but dont expect a work PC to be private or not monitored.
- def8cefe 6y agoIf you are 'god'-level admin on any enterprise mail server I've ever used you can read users email or even manipulate it in transit. This is intentional, all business correspondence is property of the organisation.
- Kwantuum 6y agoAlso likely illegal in most of the world.
- GhostVII 6y agoUnder what laws would it be illegal? I think it is completely reasonable for a company to have access to all data on company-provided accounts, so long as the employees aren't mislead into thinking it is private.
- distances 6y agoThis is a big difference between Europe and US. I think different European countries require different levels of strictness -- it may be employer isn't allowed to even track who are the correspondents, let alone reading the email contents.
- kube-system 6y agoIt is regulated in Europe, not banned. In general, employers can read your email, they just have to do it a certain way. Here's a guide for UK employers: https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/2-107-4386?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1 https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/2-107-4386?transi...
- revax 6y agoI don't know for the rest of the world, but in France you can indicate your mail being private by adding a prefix to the subject of your mail with "Privé". Then the "secrecy of correspondence"[1] apply. Some company restrict the usage of private messages using the company-provided mail, but it is not the default case. The company cannot access those messages without your consent or without a suspicion of a crime (like a leak of data). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence Source in French with some court's judgement : https://www.arobase.org/entreprise/email-personnel.htm https://www.arobase.org/entreprise/email-personnel.htm
- pwarner 6y agoI think the admin always has the power to see things in all tools unless it's true E2E encryption which I think is very rare in corporate environments, or even non existent?
- SanchoPanda 6y agoThe admin is on the "end" portion of the E2E encryption.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoWhat? If there's a company IRC server, and I'm using to encrypt messages locally, send them through the server, and then my friend decrypts them locally, where does the admin get access?
- shadowgovt 6y agoProbably in your boss's office, around the time you're pulled into a meeting with the admin, your boss, and HR, and your boss says "So that message you sent over the company IRC on such-and-such day: what was in it?" ... with all necessary and legal steps taken regarding your continued employment at that organization should you refuse to voluntarily divulge the contents of the message or a way to decrypt it. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- thaumasiotes 6y agoThis might happen, but it would seem to disprove the idea that 'The admin is on the "end" portion of the E2E encryption', not support it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoIt really depends on the details, but one obvious answer is if the admin in question has root access to both of your workstations, which would be completely unsurprising in an enterprise environment.
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- mslate 6y agoOf course they can, why would anyone assume otherwise?
- reaperducer 6y agoBecause every time I log in to Google with a web browser, no matter what device I'm using, it pesters me to install the GMail app on my phone because it's "better" and "safer" and "more secure." Funny how "I don't want the GMail app" is the only piece of my existence that Google seems unable to keep track of.
- agentdrtran 6y agoThe GMail app is absolutely more secure that using POP/IMAP which is what almost all other mail apps use.
- reaperducer 6y agoI trust mail over TLS way more than I trust anything from Google. Especially an app with who knows what telemetry. https://www.fastmail.com/help/technical/ssltlsstarttls.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/technical/ssltlsstarttls.html
- lmkg 6y ago"More secure" is different than "more private." I absolute trust that Google can prevent unauthorized parties from reading my email. The issue is what parties are authorized.
- michaelt 6y agoI am aware it's common, and perhaps unavoidable so long as administrators can reset users' passwords, but it's always struck me as strange. In many organisations the guy who operates the mail server does not have the same seniority as the CEO, and neither would they be read into every commercially sensitive project, every HR, disciplinary, or employee medical discussion. So it seems odd to me that IT administrators, who are often such sticklers for security and opponents of the idea of trustingly granting overly-broad permissions, would even want the ability to do an end-run around information isolation.
- arkadiyt 6y agoJust assume your work has full access to every system you touch and act accordingly.
- manigandham 6y agoYes. This is standard functionality of every corporate email system for auditing, liability, security, and many other reasons.
- otachack 6y agoAs a sidenote: If you have an Android phone and your work uses Gsuite, you may want to double check privileges you're giving your company by being signed into your Android phone. Your employer may be able to wipe your phone, track it, etc. Instead, I installed a different browser dedicated to logging into work email.
- SanchoPanda 6y agoMost of my peers have gotten around to gettng a second phone to not have to keep up on what the current rules are regarding what is and is not private on a device used for work.
- downerending 6y agoThis is the way to go. Never do personal stuff or expect privacy on any device your employer is touching.
- londons_explore 6y agoI'd much rather have my work 'device' be a VM on my home phone. Sadly virtual machines on phones are prevented pretty thoroughly by the android/iOS system design, at least in any kind of efficient way. "Work profiles" don't really cut it...
- distances 6y agoAlso, Google Chat doesn't have a mobile web version. If your company uses it you'll probably have to choose between allowing the company access your phone, or limiting your Chat usage to computers. For me the latter was an easy decision, also helps to draw the line between working and time off.
- legitster 6y agoIn my version of Android, my work account and related privileges are cordoned off to it's own section on my phone.
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- plexicle 6y agoAdmin here. Of course you can. You should always assume you can. Even if I couldn't read the email (which I can, but fortunately have never actually had the need to or done so), I can always reset a password and gain full and instant access. You should always assume your employer can see your enterprise correspondence. G Suite or not.
- Skunkleton 6y ago> You should always assume your employer can see your enterprise correspondence. Just to expand here. You should assume that your employer has access to _everything_ that you do with their assets. If you are trying to maintain privacy from your employer for whatever reason, do not use your work phone/laptop/email/etc.
- fxtentacle 6y agoYou should also assume that your employer can take those things away instantly. For example, one day your laptop forcibly restarts and afterwards you're locked out. Then a day later, you get the call that you were canned. So always keep private communication separate and get private phone numbers / email addresses from coworkers that you get along well with. The company can delete your extension and email address, but with a bit of preparation that doesn't have to be the end of your personal relationships.
- SAI_Peregrinus 6y agoWith a lot of employment contracts they not only have access to everything, but also own the copyright/patents of anything made with their equipment.
- everdrive 6y agoExactly, and even if your employer doesn't have logging software, they can get physical access to your laptop and look for logs and data manually. Importantly, you can't predict when and if this could happen.
- crispyambulance 6y ago
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- nefitty 6y agoSemi-relevant, and a discussion I've had in the past in regards to Slack DM's. My company was a guest in our client's Slack workspace so this was an internal anxiety. Short answer, admins have the ability to view private messages after jumping a couple of hoops: Slack Plus/Corporate: "This type of export includes content from public and private channels and direct messages." https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-Export-your-workspace-data https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-Export-your-worksp...
- markstos 6y agoAs a Slack admin, I changed the default retention period from "forever" to "1 year". Old Slack messages are more likely be a liability as a benefit, for the company as well as individuals. If you want to store something important for the long term, Slack is not the place to do that.
- duxup 6y agoI assume work has access to any of my work tools, either directly, or potentially legally or whatever.
- netsharc 6y agoOff topic: Wow, the layout of that webpage makes me sad. I have a 27" Full HD display, and holding a piece of A4 paper against the screen, each step takes up about the area of said A4 paper.
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- thereyougo 6y agoIt raises a few interesting questions. Shall we give employees more privacy rights within the organization?
- shadowgovt 6y agoOn the specific axis of email privacy: seems unnecessary in this modern era, where the practical solution to keeping your private correspondence private is to log in from a second browser session to an email account other than the one provided by your place of employment (ideally, running on a computer other than the one provided by your place of employment, talking to a network other than the one provided by your place of employment. That's a lot of words to say "Use your smartphone email client and don't connect to the wifi", but there you go ;) ).
- rntksi 6y agoG Suite has implemented recently an option that lets you email sensitive content with a timer. The user receives the email and no content is in the email, instead a link is shown, and the content will be deleted after some kind of triggers (e.g. after X minutes, or after having been read once) Now I would be interested in whether Google Vault retains those. Because it's a conundrum either way. If google vault does retain it, you have sensitive content that people think are private but is not. If google vault does not retain it, then accountability, auditing, liability, etc... goes out the window and google vault isn't a vault anymore. Anyone on G Suite Business can check and confirm?
- plexicle 6y agoI don't think I can see those. I know if you turn history off in Hangouts, I can't access those either. Unless something recently changed.
- Tyr42 6y agoChat with history off is not recorded as far as I can see. https://support.google.com/a/answer/7664184?visit_id=637217894253118613-4171235798&rd=1 https://support.google.com/a/answer/7664184?visit_id=6372178... If history is off, messages are deleted after 24 hours. Vault can't hold, retain, or search direct messages that are sent with history turned off. Check with a Vault admin to confirm that these history settings comply with your organization's data retention obligations.
- Tyr42 6y agohttps://support.google.com/vault/answer/4388708?hl=en https://support.google.com/vault/answer/4388708?hl=en March 7, 2019 If your organization enables Gmail confidential mode, Vault can hold, retain, search, and export all confidential mode messages sent by users in your organization. Confidential messages sent after November 30, 2018 are visible to Vault in the mailboxes of all internal senders and recipients. Messages are always available to Vault, even when the sender sets an expiration date or revokes recipients' access to confidential mode messages. https://support.google.com/a/answer/7684332?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/7684332?hl=en Confidential mode messages and Vault Vault can hold, retain, search, and export all confidential mode messages sent by users in your domain. Vault has no visibility into the content of confidential mode messages sent to your organization from external parties. If your domain uses Vault, carefully review how Vault handles confidential mode messages To support Vault's requirement to access confidential mode messages, Gmail attaches a copy of the confidential mode content to the recipient's message. Here's what you should know about this copy: It's attached only when the message sender and recipient are in the same organization. It's only available to Vault. Senders and recipients cannot access the copy from Gmail. Third-party mail archiving tools cannot access the copy. To delete all copies of a confidential mode message, you must delete it from the sender account and all recipients' accounts.
- gigatexal 6y agoI've always assumed my work email was being read either by a person or some automated process.
- ArchReaper 6y ago* 2017 Article still needs proofreading lol
- phn 6y agoI knew about the audit route, and I should add that at least for this method, the fact that you accessed the e-mails is permanently saved in the audit records. While this means that yes, "the company" can read your e-mails, it also means that they can't deny doing it if it actually happened. Neither can a rogue employee do it without there being a record, assuming you have accounts properly setup and don't share account passwords.
- _verandaguy 6y agoI wonder if this applies to ad-hoc Hangouts calls made using corporate accounts as well (and specifically, ones which aren't explicitly set to record by the participants).
- nefitty 6y agoI couldn’t find a way that an admin could see any past Hangouts video meeting, but they do have access to all metadata. They can also enforce a setting to record Hangouts to Google Drive, which means those recordings would be accessible by an admin. It is unclear if recording can be enforced, but presumably, if so, Hangouts would give an indication that the meeting is being recorded. There’s also a setting to have chat logs on, which would then make them accessible by admins. https://support.google.com/a/answer/9186729?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/9186729?hl=en https://www.goldyarora.com/blog/google-vault-guide/ https://www.goldyarora.com/blog/google-vault-guide/
- artursapek 6y agoNot if your organization uses PGP!
- jpswade 6y agoI would always treat emails like they are readable by anyone at any time regardless of permissions.
- carapace 6y agoYeah, this. They are sent and stored in plaintext. It's like if you write all your correspondence on postcards (no envelopes) and then wonder if the mailman can read your mail.
- exabrial 6y agoWhy is this even a question? You're on a company asset, using company services, doing company business, handling company IP. You should have no expectation of privacy.
- mahart 6y agoAlso legal action can require the admin to have access to obtain this stuff. Also thanks to FOIA, there are government orgs that are required to comply with public requests for copies of emails.
- benhurmarcel 6y agoIt depends on the jurisdiction. In many European countries for example, it's not that clear cut.
- mountain_404 6y agoYes, they can always can. They can reset your password and gain access to your Gsuite email account. The same thing happens to Slack where they can access to archive of all messages, including private channel. NEVER gossip anything with WORK account. Always assume they will see you. Create a PRIVATE Facebook, PRIVATE Gmail, etc and discuss there.
- yc-kraln 6y agoI don't know why, but the concept of a "Private" Facebook account is really funny to me.
- Medicalidiot 6y agoI've always assumed that my chancellor/boss/attending will read every single email that I write. It changes the paradigm for how I write and I think for the better.
- twomoretime 6y agoI've always thought it was crazy that we are so eager to use free third party centralized services for secure communications. There has to be some degree of corporate espionage occurring when every startup and many mature corps are using everything from Gmail to teams to slack to discord. It would be really difficult to sniff out if the offending admin kept quiet. All you need is one person with access...and if you're a less than ethical executive it isn't hard to find a dev to do your bidding quietly.
- mywittyname 6y agoFunny story: I was creating a script that would download attachments from an arbitrary (enterprise) gmail account, then do some processing on it. This was basically a hack we devised because there wasn't an API to fetch the file we needed programmatically, but we could schedule an email to be sent with the file as an attachment. I decided that I didn't want to deal with maintaining a gmail oauth token, so I went down the rabbit hole of getting my service auth set up as a gsuite admin. It turned out to work fine, no more oauth token necessary. But then I thought for a second, and changed the email address from the the junk one I setup specifically for this task to mine, and it worked. So I tried my colleagues (with their knowledge) and it worked as well. Turns out giving your service account admin rights means giving them full access to the entire company's accounts. So with a sigh and a dammit, I went back to using the oauth token. I couldn't find any way to be a "limited" gsuite admin over just some set of email addresses; it was all-or-nothing. This seems like a strange oversight on Google's part, but I also could have missed some documentation.
- judge2020 6y agoSounds like GSuite Delegation, which does allow you to perform API calls as any user on the domain.
- guyzero 6y agoThis seems like various security "holes" in unix where once you're root that you can do bad things. Or to quote Raymond Chen: "Well, yeah. It’s compromised because you compromised it."
- jb775 6y agoI think it's safe to say you shouldn't expect any privacy when it comes to your work computer. If you look in Chrome's privacy settings, you may notice: "Your administrator can change your browser setup remotely. Activity on this device may also be managed outside of Chrome". Considering I've granted Google Hangouts screen/webcam/microphone access, I'm assuming they can access my screen/webcam/microphone whenever.
- Animats 6y agoIt's probably best to assume that Google is reading your corporate email, analyzing it automatically, and using that information for something that benefits Google. Is it insider trading if Google uses that to decide in what stocks to park their excess cash?
- carapace 6y agoA little more nuanced: Google as a whole is almost certainly not doing this, however a subset of bad actors within Google almost certainly are doing this.