Email Privacy within the Workplace
Electronic communication is one of the major methods of communicating nowadays, but although email is easy to learn and use, problems have arisen such as lack of security and privacy particularly in the workplace. More and more bosses are now monitoring their employees email but to what effect? As electronic communication has grown, the number of disciplinary cases continues to increase, leaving employees and employers unclear about the rights of privacy in the workplace. ... Unreasonable surveillance in the workplace can cause the employee stress and can incur a feeling of mistrust within the company. ... Conflicting legislation covering the use of email monitoring in the workplace has made this question difficult to answer. ... According to this Act, unless consent of authorisation of the sender and recipient of the email is given, then interception of communication is unlawful. ... In June of this year, the UK Information Commissioner announced a code of practice on surveillance in the workplace called “Employment Practices Data Protection Code”. ... html In USA, employees have no rights at all, even if an employer promises not to monitor email on the company system, there is not an expectation of privacy in the email. Michael Smyth worked for a company that promised all the employees that “all email communications would remain confidential and privileged” and that “email communications could not be used by [the company] against its employees as grounds for termination”. ... When this was brought to court, the court ruled in favour of the company “We do not find that reasonable person would consider the defendants (the company) interception of theses communications to be a substantial and highly offensive invasion of his privacy.