Monitoring Personal E-mail Accounts On Company Computers

(Published April 6, 2009)

In this economy, it's imperative that employees are at the top of their productivity game. The company's survival depends on it. One of the most insidious drains on employee productivity is access to the Internet. More specifically, access to personal, web-based e-mail accounts. The fact that an employee accesses such an e-mail account using their work computer trumps the fact that the e-mail account is personal in nature, and thus, makes those e-mails fair game for their employer's monitoring eyes. Or does it? Find out how far you can go when it comes to monitoring employees' use of such accounts.

 

Generally speaking, messages sent on public e-mail systems are afforded greater privacy protections than those that are sent on completely "internal" company e-mail systems. That doesn't mean you may not have a company policy that reserves the right to monitor personal e-mail accounts accessed via company equipment. It means that you must drive home the point that employees should have absolutely no expectation of privacy when it comes to private e-mail accounts accessed at work.

 

That's exactly what one company did. Its electronic communications policy warned employees that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to any communication made on company-issued laptop computers and server, regardless of whether the e-mail was sent from a work account or a personal web-based account.

 

In light of the policy, the New Jersey Superior Court ruled that attorney-client privilege did not apply to an employee's correspondence with her attorney through a personal, web-based e-mail account she accessed from a company laptop. The court reasoned that the employee must have been well aware of the policy since it appeared in a handbook that she helped to create, draft, and distribute. Upshot: The court permitted the employer to use the correspondences in its defense against her discrimination claim. (Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc., NJ Super. Ct., No. BER-L-858-08, 2009)

 

Follow in this company's cyber-steps and include a similar clause in your organization's electronic communications policy. Then make sure to fully communicate the policy to employees. Explicitly warn them that the company reserves the right to monitor: 1) personal e-mail accounts accessed using the company's equipment, and 2) any e-mails transmitted through personal, web-based accounts that are stored on their hard drives as temporary files.

 

Just because it's generally acceptable for an employer to monitor employees' personal e-mail activity where a clear policy exists and company equipment is involved, doesn't mean your managers should make it a regular practice.

• Require managers to get approval from a higher-up or HR before monitoring an employee's private e-mail account. Don't allow unfettered access.
  
• Identify a manager's motivations for wanting to monitor a particular employee's personal e-mail account before granting approval. Monitoring done in the ordinary course of business or as part of a workplace investigation is advisable. Monitoring out of curiosity or to build a case against an employee who rubs them the wrong way is not.
  
• Remind managers to stop reading e-mail once they've determined that the subject matter is personal.

For more advice on managing the electronic ways of your employees, join AHI on April 14 for a live web conference, MySpace = My Business? Not Likely! Creating & Enforcing Policies Relating To E-mail, Blogging, Cell Phones & Other Electronic Communication. 

 

Related Topic(s):

Privacy Policy Guidelines/Electronic Communications