Some Courts Raise the Bar on Reading Employee E-mails

Employees may have more privacy rights than they expect with regards to corporate e-mail servers, according to legal experts. Some state courts are showing more consideration when it comes to employers reading employee e-mails electronically and violating their privacy. The force behind the change in how some state courts view these violations is due to increasing capabilities of accessing someone's personal and financial information. Some state courts take into account whether or not employers have clearly explained how e-mails are monitored to their employees. A recent survey of 220 large U.S. firms conducted by Proofpoint Inc., a provider of e-mail security and data loss prevention services, reported that 52% of employees access their personal e-mail accounts on their work computer, 20% said their organization has a policy that explains how it protects employee information, and 38% of companies said they employ staff to read or analyze the content or outgoing e-mail.

WallStreet Journal. com - Nov. 24, 2009