4 ms·

Wow, what kind of workplace did you work in? Here in Germany I think gathering many of these facts would simply be illegal.

blitzar 5y ago
A bank in Europe, it was EU wide laws that resulted in all mobile phones being brought into the surveilence net. It has been common in banks to use recorded lines for decades, but the regulatons effectively mandated monitoring of every communication internally and externally post the libor scandal. That said, when I have worked outside the region or in less regulated positions - the intrusion into particularly email and written communications is the exact same. When you leave an organisation in particular, you do reflect on how big a trail of information you have left behind in their hands.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  Financial companies are surely different from eg Apple though. As far as I’m aware, there are no laws forcing Apple to log as much of their internal communications as a typical financial company would have to.
bierjunge 5y ago
Yes most of that would be illegal, except you gave them consent in your contract or other legal document. This is also exactly why I always check all the paperwork for "personal usage" of the devices and services provided by the company (email and stuff). If there is nothing about it, I send my mom a random cat picture from my work email (always outside of office hours, in other cases it could be a contract violation). Why? Because if it's not forbidden, you are implicitly allowed to and after at least one private message was sent by the account, it's legally like a private account. If your employer snoops in the account, it's a massive privacy violation (Datenschutzgesetz and DSGVO/GDPR) and a strong case in employment law. Never needed it, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
- blitzar 5y ago
  There is the law and then there are employment contracts. Sometimes these things overlap, intersect or contradict in interesting ways. I dont think I have ever worked under an IT policy that was anything but 'for work use only' - although that didnt stop me from taking great pleasure at seeing how many work emails were used to sign up for sugardaddie etc whenever they leaked. I was never too fussed - having two phones, two emails, two laptops etc doesn't bother me in the slightest. You lose access to the work phone number / email / storage when you leave anyway so it's really of no use. I have even come to like the physical separation of work and personal, there are times each needs more than 50% of my attention.

blitzar 5y ago

A bank in Europe, it was EU wide laws that resulted in all mobile phones being brought into the surveilence net. It has been common in banks to use recorded lines for decades, but the regulatons effectively mandated monitoring of every communication internally and externally post the libor scandal. That said, when I have worked outside the region or in less regulated positions - the intrusion into particularly email and written communications is the exact same. When you leave an organisation in particular, you do reflect on how big a trail of information you have left behind in their hands.

dan-robertson 5y ago
Financial companies are surely different from eg Apple though. As far as I’m aware, there are no laws forcing Apple to log as much of their internal communications as a typical financial company would have to.

bierjunge 5y ago

Yes most of that would be illegal, except you gave them consent in your contract or other legal document. This is also exactly why I always check all the paperwork for "personal usage" of the devices and services provided by the company (email and stuff). If there is nothing about it, I send my mom a random cat picture from my work email (always outside of office hours, in other cases it could be a contract violation). Why? Because if it's not forbidden, you are implicitly allowed to and after at least one private message was sent by the account, it's legally like a private account. If your employer snoops in the account, it's a massive privacy violation (Datenschutzgesetz and DSGVO/GDPR) and a strong case in employment law. Never needed it, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

blitzar 5y ago
There is the law and then there are employment contracts. Sometimes these things overlap, intersect or contradict in interesting ways. I dont think I have ever worked under an IT policy that was anything but 'for work use only' - although that didnt stop me from taking great pleasure at seeing how many work emails were used to sign up for sugardaddie etc whenever they leaked. I was never too fussed - having two phones, two emails, two laptops etc doesn't bother me in the slightest. You lose access to the work phone number / email / storage when you leave anyway so it's really of no use. I have even come to like the physical separation of work and personal, there are times each needs more than 50% of my attention.