A Moral Dilemma At Work

[Azat]

Yesterday I sent a work related email to a coworker and within a minute received an auto reply from her boos who is out of town for 2 days saying that he is not available these next couple of days.

 

Immediately I checked my sent message to make sure that I accidentally had not sent the message to him, but for sure it was just addressed to only my coworker. So I sent another message and this time just a goofy one to make see if I get a response, and just as before the message came back from him.

 

So it was discovered that this one Sr. VPs is monitoring emails of others in his group and possibly the other VP are doing the same thing. My question is what would you have done at this moment? Keep in mind that you need the job(can’t really afford to loose it) but you feel repulsed by the who idea of people reading someone else’s emails and privacy issues.

 

I will tell you what I have done so far. I immediately went and told the coworker that her boss is monitoring her emails. BTW She is a director level person like I. I then cam to the CIO of the company and confronted the practice. I was told “it is a common practice in many companies”. I started to question why one would not have trust for their employees and has to read every single email that goes to that person. Almost has a voyeuristic thing to it. I then informed all my guys to install PGP and to pass public keys to each other and all emails within our group must be encrypted. Including jokes and such.

 

What else can one do. In the short period of time all the people who have sent emails to her have realized that her boss is reading these emails and are now feeling that their management is doing the same.

 

I actually have voiced my opinion that this VP needs to be forced out to set an example to all the other VPs in the company and to calm everyone down that if a manager is found reading emails they will be forced out…

[Maral]

Is it illegal?

And these emails...are they interoffice emails that are being monitored?

Or if you sent a not from hotmail let's say,to a hotmail or aol account,would those be monitored also?

[Sasun]

Wow, that's sickening. How dare they do that. I would think there are some laws prohibiting such practice. Isn't it a gross violation of one's privacy?

[Maral]

Is E-mail Private? Not at Work

An attorney answers key questions about the legal aspects of monitoring employee e-mail.

What rights to privacy do employees have on E-mail?

 

The law provides little or no guarantee of personal privacy on a company's E-mail system. There is no constitutional "right of privacy" for internal E-mail communications. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 prohibits the interception of messages sent over online systems or the Internet, but exceptions exist that give employers the right to monitor employee E-mail.

 

Is it legal to read employees' E-mail without their knowledge?

Yes, under most circumstances. The issue has arisen in cases in which an employee has been terminated after the employer read E-mail. To date, no court has upheld employee arguments that termination was based on a violation of privacy rights.

 

What is an effective E-mail policy?

Avoid giving employees the impression that they can expect E-mail privacy. This message should be stated in policy manuals and posted prominently on the E-mail system itself. However, the law is so favorable to employers that even when they do the opposite— tell employees that E-mail will be treated as confidential— they may not be bound by their promise.

 

How should companies handle E-mail monitoring?

That's up to the employer and based on technical and personnel resources. There are no legal restrictions.

[Maral]

The practice is annoying and insulting.

But after a bit of research I did,there are a lot of grey areas unfortunately.

[Azat]

This is not a legal question. They by law can monitor everything you do in the office. It is sickening, but it is allowed. After all you are using their equipment and resources to email.

 

Actually me typing this here on the corporate network on the company PC is probably monitored as well.

[Sasun]

Actually me typing this here on the corporate network on the company PC is probably monitored as well.

In that case I have a few nice words for that VP ...... I hope he can see it

[Azat]

Is it illegal?

And these emails...are they interoffice emails that are being monitored?

Or if you sent a not from hotmail let's say,to a hotmail or aol account,would those be monitored also?

This incident is specifically for any email(interoffice or from outside) to her inbox.

 

no it is not illegal, but what happens to trust. And how do they fix the problem now... Most employees are talking about not sending emails anymore. Does it not bring productivity down? Who knows maybe it increases as less chitchat and only business emails start to be sent

[gevo27]

there was actually a large report about this little while backa, i heard arguemtns, from both sides, the arguements the CEO's of the company proposed were stupid.. but they had the money, and won the arguemtn.. and its actually not prhibited directly from any law.. which was the origination of the arguement.. though the law does kinda say.. its ok.. but not implicitly.. lol..

SO.. it sucks, but they can.. only way around it

[Maral]

Azat,well if they can legally do it...and they are doing it...whether we think it's good or bad doesn't really matter...it is what it is.

Companies aren't there to make friends,they exist to make money...and they have to protect themselves.That's the bottom line.

If I were you I'ld be upset too,considering all the information I share in emails

but what can you do?Be careful with the contents of your emails at work,that's it.

[Armat]

Azat jan, keep a low profile on this even though it is very repulsive.It is not worth becoming a hero among co workers but a black sheep among your bosses.Remember who pays you.I lost enough jobs in two years that the thought of becoming unemployed again scares the crap out of me.

[Sip]

Privacy laws do not apply to such companies. If you are using their networks and their machines to send emails, they have every right to monitor things ... I used to work at the IT department of this big company for a few years and we monitored (could monitor) everything. You are not supposed to make any personal communication with company stuff anyway.

 

This one time I caught this guy that was making a call 3 times a day to the same number ... turned out to be his bookie! I don't know if they fired him

 

So all I can tell you Azatik, is be repulsed if you want but never think anything you do or say at work is private. As a matter of fact, don't even assume your regular email is private ... it is transmitted as plain text

 

If you log into telnet or ftp ... those are all plain text and anyone could read them!

 

The only really secure method is ssh but the emails you sent may go through unencrypted hops somewhere ... so to be sure your messages are sent encrypted and only the people you want can read them is using PGP ... you just give people your public key and let them encrypt anything they send you. The only person that will be able to read it would be you with your private key.

[gevo27]

i will dig into this more, but i just chatted with a porofessor, and he said companies can do that when you work for them, but they let you know, either if they literally tell you at hiring, or if you sign away at it in the pages of legal documents.. so beware.. they probably even have your consent to read your emails.. lol... but ill see what the laws specifically says about that... maybe if they dont have consent,,, they cant read..

[Sip]

If it is their private network and their machines then they can read. Almost ALL companies have these disclaimers in their employee handbooks.

[Azat]

You guys, this is not a legality issue or anything. I also know that companies can monitor this stuff. Heck, when I was running the online department at MGM it was one of my responsibilities at MGM(never did it until we had just cause).

 

Maral jan, unfortunately I am one of those bosses who is getting questioned right now. For you see my solution right now is that the only way people are going to feel more comfy and spend constructive time on work rather than think that they are being monitored all the time is to force that VP out.

 

I am not trying to be the nice guy to the coworkers as my coworkers are the people who are being questioned right now.

 

BTW: I have never read another persons email myself. Even though we all have that option open to us. And I guess I assumed no one was doing it.

[vava]

No time now to read/respond in detail:

 

I'm in a position to monitor pretty much whatever happens on our network (no I'm neither a techie nor the boss) but I would NEVER do such a thing. NOPE, no way!

 

Two words (and this really does affect productivity: KILL MORALE. It's one sure was to destroy the employee/employer relationship and as a direct consequence diminish the quality/reliability of their work. he should have at least thought of this before putting on his autoresponder

[Anileve]

Azatyush, you are too noble of a person to work in such a strict corporate environment. I say get out before you get sucked in too far, too deep. It's sad to say that in many cases, most of our life is consumed by work we despise with people we don't like, stay there long enough and you won't be any different than a machine.

 

The politics of the Corporate America are just nauseating. With that being said it reminds me of the giant company I worked for, where the 70 year old CEO used to have call girls making daily visits to his office. First time I noticed, I thought his provocative daughter is paying him a visit. Until I noticed that he greeted her by placing his hand underneath her skirt, leading her to his office and shutting his door for half an hour.

[Stormig]

I think this whole thing with monitoring because it is their equipment is outrageous. It's computers and networks, why are they different from phones and lines? Do you listen to people calling up their spouses telling them how much they miss them and wanna have a special greeting tonight? Obviously, computers and networks are more prone to "abuse," but only in the event of such should there be intervention, action, what have you - corporate phones can also be used to call someone's home and not answer, harass them, can't they? Obviously there's a policy for that as well. I think all this BS just betrays the insecurities of the people in such positions, nothing else.

[Azat]

Anileve jan, I completely agree with you. I have already realized that I have become a machine in a way. BTW: I have mentioned before that Dec 31, 2008 is the last day I work for IT/Software industry. Hopefully before that day. If not, even if I have a penny in the bank account and a huge mortgage and , and, and, I still walk out.

 

Eve, where does one go? Smaller company? Because I am almost certain all larger companies have similar systems.

 

Stormy jan, Most companies including ours ow days run on VOIP phone systems. So we have a system that records EVERY conversation, and some management even get reports that shows how much time each of their employees spend on the phone, how many calls, what numbers and such. And I an sure there must be some idiots who even listen to these conversations. Come to think of it, as I have a management phone system, I can pick it up, punch in a code and a phone extension and listen in live to a conversation of any of any one who works for me without that person knowing anything about it. VERY sick, but it is reality...

[Stormig]

Alright, from now on it is mobiles only.