Asking for a friend in NSW.
Background - Friend away on "Personal leave" due to sickness and workplace stress. During that period, their work email has been forwarded to the manager without consent or notice.
What is the legality around that and what can be done?
@Scrooge McDuck: I've always thought of nachos as the One ring of foods.
One Ring nacho to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them..
Yep, not related to this case, but I know from previous roles that pretty much anything you do at work can be looked at. Skype/Lync/chat conversations, emails, logins, security footage etc
But the above is only if your are suspected of wrongdoing for internal investigation. There aren't people reading through thousands of lines of data just for fun…
Not just suspect, but random looks as well.
Friend in IT had that as part of his job… discovered two people in the office with a 3rd out side was in a Ménage à trois
Yeah, I suppose random spot checks could happen too ha
You seem to have problems with coming to terms with the concept.
Think of it this way, the mail box belongs to the company (hence "work email"), you're just provided access to it.
Give us your friend's email address and we'll pass along the message…
Give us your friend's work email address and we'll pass along the message…
FTFY
Completely legal. Hope your friend didn't use that email account for personal use!
Guarantee you this is why they are concerned. I cannot fathom the amount of people who think using their work email for personal stuff is appropriate.
Probably even said something stupid about work or their boss or colleagues.
Always assume work, school, uni or whatever email (or your own email even) is being monitored.
I wonder if the "friend" has been applying for other jobs and is worried they'll get invitations for interviews that their boss will see
I've seen people give out their work email to friends. One guy I know got 'fired' because management said an email from a friend sounded like a job interview.
I hope this "friend" and anyone else never gives out their work email and NEVER do any non-work related work on computer. Even facebook/bank account/etc. It can be logged by IT and you will have no idea why money disappears etc.
You'd have to be downright stupid to use your work email to apply for a job lol
It's always a friend. Yes they have every right and "friend" most likely signed a code of conduct relating to her use of their systems.
So just trolling?
NSW did come out with a policy ~9 years ago (EDIT: Looks like it was 2005), though if there is legitimate reasons and at worse will require HR approval. It is above board.
For any corporate type email system, all emails which are sent/received will be journaled and archived away separate to your mailbox. These can/do get investigated on a regular basis.
Don't have personal emails sent to your work account and don't write anything you wouldn't want the world to see written via email (or the internal work chat program). GAH! the amount of personal email/mailing list/random junk that people sign up with their work email accounts is off the charts.
Your work email is not your email, it is a tool. Sure not everyone is allowed to see your emails but if there is a legitimate reason those people on a need to know, can have access to it.
I was in charge of IT at one time and the head boss asked me to look into one of the (about-to-be-fired) Sales guy's work email. Found out that he was exporting client information so he could use the contacts and information to jump-start his own business (big boss suspected). Sales guy obviously finds out I went investigating after head boss reams him a new one and swears up and down about how he's going to sue the shit out of me and that my life is over. I'm outside having a smoke when he comes up to me after yelling at his lawyer on the phone and says:
"Well it looks like it's fine for you to snoop through employees emails."
"Yes"
"Yeah well it's really rude and I would fire you if I could"
"You can't"
Salty dude. Went and started his business and 6 months later it was down the drain.
tl;dr: employers can look through your work emails and have full access. Don't hide / lie / plan your next business using your work emails.
Definitely legal - i work in IT and have to do this occasionally.
They are using property, email address, software etc that is owned by the employer. Anything created using work property/software becomes the employer's intellectual property. Everything that is done on work computers and servers is trackable and can be monitored. Hence, IT had access to forward emails to their manager. If they have used a work email address for their personal things, that is very unfortunate.
If they are in the union, maybe they can help. But maybe they don't believe in unions. They could seek advice from the Fair Work Ombudsman or seek legal advice regarding this email issue, anywho good luck!
Check your corporate policy guidelines most of the correct advice is above.
It's not just emails they can look through.
There has been a big clamp down on this where I work to the point, they warned us they were monitoring all attachments through email and messaging services to ensure our business remained our business
There are some things they can't look at, we have access to a few machines that don't respect boundaries because they can't be set so if someone needs to look up personal information with one of these machines they have to do it under supervision / have a solid reason for looking and have independent security watching to ensure they don't go looking too far. it's frightening it gives them the whole life story in seconds.
I had to trawl through all employees mobiles once.. that was fun..
When we first started setting up internet connectivity I had an analyser put on the line checking the traffic; one of the sites was “big bouncy girls”, I just burst out laughing.
We have at last count that I'm aware of 7 IBM Watson's in our use. They are true beasts and can find anything. Nothing is private.
This is actually very common, a lot of employee emails are investigated daily (with appropriate company authorisation) without the employee even knowing about it
I've been working in IT for 25 years. Email & network monitoring is completely legal. In fact, every email you have, and every file you download is work property, not yours.
I specialize in network security. Essentially monitoring tools for corporate networks. The beauty of it all is it's cloud based so even when the boss is away. they can still monitor what you do and say.
Agreed, this is completely standard.
The hilarious part for me is when someone is caught using company resources for "insert dodgy activity here" and get all indignant about it when they are slightly reprimanded. At most companies you literally agree to the potential of being monitored when you join the company via the Information security policy or the Acceptable use policy!
Perfectly legal and acceptable in every company.
For starters, don't assume the worst in everyone. The boss may not necessarily be deliberately snooping on your Emails. It is to capture and act on emails from clients that may for a multitude of reasons only be addressed to you while you are not available. This is so boss can ensure clients are dealt with in a timely manner rather than be ignorant and say the company wasn't aware of it.
This is not even getting into the fact that it is a WORK email. If you are worried about personal stuff, you should have used your personal email in the first place.
A colleague took a role ("Change Manager") tasked with documenting job processes, outsourcing and firing the locals.
His very first step was to make a backup of everyone's emails.
His second step was to get IT to start actively monitoring the communication of a handful of identified "trouble makers" within the company.
The only problem was that IT stuffed up and all of the troublemakers could see that oddly their email folders had a sharing/hand icon activated.
Of course. They were using work email as personal email? The point of work email is that work owns the emails. When you quit they have your client history all right there. If you did it all over personal email then they would haven nothing.
Work email addresses/mailboxes are the property of the employer.
Check the policy of the employer.
You worry about email?
Your friend should worry of remote desktop surveillance. Instead of your boss breathing behind your neck, they can now breath in front of your face. And that is completely legal.
In a previous job this was actually something I was tasked with.
Had to find, purchase and install some ridiculous monitoring software on a terminal server.
The big boss of that company (a client of ours) could then sit back and see all his employees sessions like he was watching a set of security cameras. It seemed really unnecessary.
Curious what software you used knk?
I'm looking at doing something similar but not on terminal server - simple workstation.
FB has a lot to answer for in terms of lost productivity.
I honestly can't remember. It looked pretty dodgy and this was back in the terminal server 2k3 days.
I imagine you'd have a heap more options for workstation monitoring.
Can you just block Facebook? It's pretty easily done if you have decent networking hardware OR some sort of DNS filtering (preferred)
my friend
What have you (your friend!) got to hide? It's work email and it should be purely for work. Any decent employee would have set the email forwarding to the manager themselves without consent and not the other way around.
In addition, avoid using work wifi, work devices such as laptops and phones for anything personal.
If your work wants you to have a phone, request an ongoing allowance or pay rise to cover costs of using your own phone.
It’s always best to protect yourself practically then rely on privacy laws which are not always black and white.
Sorry to your friend, hope the revelation that they are not in control of their work email doesn't make them more stressed
interesting - although just make sure the usage is within work place policy
I have never had a workplace have IT manage the forwarding of emails to the manager of the area.
Its something that where I work we put on an 'out of office' and we deal with the emails when we get back.
Historically, landline phone extensions have been diverted when someone was away. Same applied to company mobile phones. Same principle should apply to work email. Quite certain any Aus court would view it as just another communication channel, particularly if the argument is framed as above.
Don't see what the issue is unless the "friend" has been using their work email for personal things.
I don't get it myself, but heaps of people in my office use their work email for everything such as bills, statements, signing up to websites etc - I don't get why they don't keep it separate with a Gmail account or similar, but each to their own.
It would be these people that would get annoyed at having their emails forwarded through, but that's their problem.
It’s normal depending on job. Not illegal eitherway. They own the email and can do anything they want with it.
Amazing how stupid some people are! If only humans could be desexed from repopulating.
In my company that I work for, I archive every incoming and outgoing emails that goes though the company mail server. There are many times it was helpful when my boss need access to the emails when the staffs go for long annual leave. So it's worth the terabytes.
The key part is that it is "work email". What if they went on leave and important customers were trying to contact them etc. In this day and age where it is easy to keep your personal emails separate then why would you care if your boss reads your emails. My work has a policy advising that they can monitor everything but even without this, it's not your own personal email - it's a work email as you say which is just being directed or sent out from you. Your work should have every right to look - even more so if you are on leave. If you miss payment deadlines, etc. then you could get seriously screwed. There is generally some leeway for personal emails which should be kept at a minimum but primarily the purpose is work and if that is the case then what is the issue with the boss looking at them?
Actually to clarify - what is your friend concerned about with emails being forwarded to their boss? is there anything specific?
i once got in trouble at work, and they looked at my work history and email. they determined that 95% of my emails werent work related, and during the closed christmas period i spent 3.5 hours one day on ozbargain. regardless, i stayed in the position for 11 more months. aint no thing
That's dedication. Maybe Scotty will give you a job lol
This extends out to company provided laptoprs / mobile phones.
all the dick pics you have on your company phone becomes the company's property
I find it so strange that people can't comprehend that work email belongs to work. As Scrooge McDuck said in another thread, "Most people are idiots."
I am more than happy for my manager or anyone in the workplace to read my email, probably reply to it too.
Legal.. but I believe they have to stipulate this in the work handbook /contract
I've seen people walked out of the building at the ATO for misuse of the email system. Work email is for work matters only. People really need to get that.
Any chance you can answer the PM that I sent you
username checks out
Do the right thing at work and you have nothing to worry about.
I work in IT and this is common practice. The first time I was asked to do it (at maybe 20yo) I felt really, really weird about it.
It was actually something that was covered in uni and it was generally looked at as 'unethical' rather than completely illegal, unless this was outlined in your contract / formally etc.
When a staff member leaves or goes on leave we'll either grant full mailbox access to whoever is covering them on the break or put a forward on their mail. (Dependent on the requirement to view older mail).
It's worth noting too, a-lot of the time managers have access to all mailboxes for their staff.
Do you only want to hear the answer you want to hear?
all legal and all normal. use common sense. keep work separate from sensitive private emails or any other sensitive private things.
now, please sign here…
How about this https://activtrak.com/employee-monitoring/ ?
I know companies in Australia who do that.
ur friends friends should know not to contact inappropriate things to him/her via work email - and the ones that do he/she could preemptively just whatsapp/fb/sms/phone/post to them to let them know that dont send inappropriate emails for the time being…
even when I was getting to know a work colleague i was careful not to mistake it for being a personal email address ;)
Emails would be the least of your worries, I've seen companies used web logs as evidence to fire people.
When "your friend" leaves the company, she/he has no ownership of the email address, and won't be able to take it with them. The work they are doing on the email belongs to the company, if they were off sick her work can't just stop, what happens when they go on holidays, would their customers go on holidays as well??
Companies have a right to monitor computer usage, access email & files as long as it is on their corporate device or network.
Companies should have a policy which has been presented or made visible to staff that their computers are likely to be monitored. (In cases which highlight unlawful conduct a policy may not be required).
Companies do not have a right to monitor your personal devices - unless explicitly stated in a policy about network use or BYO devices… this is a grey area I believe. I'd tread lightly here.
Regardless, as a user/staff member, be careful what you use company devices & services for. Ultimately whatever is on there is accessible and WILL be accessed at some stage by IT or the company.
Personally, I allow access to emails/files of staff to others when they're on long breaks &/or there are emergency requirements.
The it department can already read and report on your emails. Work resources have no privacy expectation and it would be insane to not understand that. Forwarding emails to a manager during unexpected issues is a common practice.
@[Deactivated]: Come to think of it, the fibrous quality of corn chips provides an enduring purpose to nachos.