| Product: |
email privacy |
| Date: |
26/10/06 (133 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Protects the company
Disadvantages: You could get fired
Many of us have probably sniggered at the stories of people who have sent a rude or suggestive e-mail boasting of a recent sexual conquest only to find said e-mail being distributed around the world for all to see and then the poor unfortunates finding themselves being hounded by the press.
I mention this because at work we have just had the first member of staff sacked for sending an inappropriate mail to a work colleague, apparently the attachment that they sent contained a pornographic image and was detected by the companies monitoring systems.
When some workers heard of this they were quite shocked because the person who revceived the mail had not complained and also they had not realised that the company actually monitored our e-mails and internet activity despite it being in the code of practice that all PC users have to sign once they start working for the company.
In my view it is quite understandable that a company would want to monitor such activity by its workers for a number of reasons.
The first is that after all you are paid to work for the company and such activity can hardly be construed as work unless you work for a mens porn magazine company. Such activity is effectively stealing company time to pursue your own interests and would not be tolerated in any other form like bunking off to watch TV so why should it be treated any differently while sat in front of your PC at work.
Secondly companies do have a duty of care to protect its employees and the sending of such e-mails could easily cause offence to some people and could also be part of a campaign of harrassment or bullying.
Finally the fact that the culprit is using a company e-mail could mean that should the e-mail find its way into the public domain then there would be negative publicityfor the company and its reputation be damaged.
For me the combination of all of these reasons means that it is understandable that a company would want to monitor its employees in this way and in my mind does not constitute any loss of freedom on my behalf after all I still have the right to remove my labour from the firm if I do not like it.
Summary: Views on companies watching e-mails from employees.
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