MARKETWATCH By RUTH MANTELL
Watch Your Emails. Your Boss Is.
Securities and Exchange Commission saved, and that emails might be subject ployer's policy, including whether the
workers whiled away the hours looking to review as part of general IT man- language is sufficient to destroy an
at pornography on the Internet. A Cali- agement or in connection with a litiga- expectation of privacy, and the com-
fornia police officer used his work- pro- tion or legal process," Ms. Parker says. ments can influence private employers
vided pager to send sexually explicit "Additionally, once an email is sent, the with similar policies.
notes. recipient generally can do what he or "Either way the decision goes, it is
These are a couple of workplace she wishes with the email, including likely to impact the way employers
e-flaps that have made headlines re- forwarding it, printing it and otherwise draft their policies and may require
cently as employers and employees distributing it." some update to policies," says Ms.
struggle to figure out whether and to Ms. Parker also notes that even Parker.
what extent personal use of company when employees are allowed some Jane McFetridge, a Chicago em-
communications technology is accept- personal use of company technology, ployment lawyer, says the Quon case
able. policies are designed so that workers could encourage employers to set clear
For those who get caught, the rest can't be guaranteed that someone else policies.
of us get to wonder: What were they won't see it.
thinking? "We know for a fact that employ- 'No Expectation of Privacy'
But the fact is that many employees ers routinely read email," says Mr. "Employers will say 'Our computers
use work email for personal matters Ponemon. "They are looking for certain are the company's, and while we under-
and pleasure surf the Internet on com- things – the leakage of business infor- stand that you may on occasion use
pany time. According to a 2010 work- mation, off-color remarks that go these for personal uses you have no
place privacy study by Ponemon Insti- against ethic policies." expectation of privacy,' " Ms. McFetrid-
tute, a Traverse City, Mich., data-securi- According to the 2009 Electronic ge says.
ty research firm, 42% of full-time em- Business Communication Policies & Pro- Nancy Flynn, executive director of
ployees in the workplace with a com- cedures Survey from the American the ePolicy Institute, says best practices
pany-assigned email account "fre- Management Association and the ePoli- call for some sort of formal training.
quently use" it for personal communica- cy Institute, 89% of workers say they "Employers do a really great job
tions and another 29% "sometimes" do. have sent email from work to an out- increasingly of putting policy in place,
side party that contained jokes, gossip, but they are not doing such a super job
'We Work All the Time' rumors or disparaging remarks, while when it comes to notifying employees
"Most people admit they use work 14% sent messages that contained about policies," she says. "You can't
email for more than business," says the confidential or proprietary information, expect an untrained work force to be a
institute's Larry Ponemon. "That doesn't and 9% of respondents admitted to compliant work force."
make them unethical or evil. We work sending sexual, romantic or porno- According to the American Man-
all the time, and sometimes it's hard to graphic text or images. agement Association/ePolicy Institute
switch" between a corporate email A case before the US Supreme survey, 80% of organizations have
account and a personal email account. Court could affect the workplace tech- written email policies, but only 47% of
As the line is increasingly blurred nology policies. employers train workers about email
between personal and professional The Supreme Court is expected to risks, policies and usage.
time, workers need to know about cur- rule in the next couple of months in the However, some of these issues may
rent norms for personal use of their case of the City of Ontario, Calif. v. become moot as consumers buy more
company's email and other technologies. Jeff Quon. A police officer, Mr. Quon communications technology.
For starters, don't expect email you used his employer-provided pager to "It may be that newer generations
send at work to remain private. send sexually explicit messages. or younger generations of employees
"It's not reasonable to expect that While the case involves a govern- may have no need for the personal use
communications on the employer's sys- ment employer, it could also impact of company systems because they are
tem are private," says labor and em- private firms because the court is likely coming into work with their own per-
ployment law attorney Katharine to comment on the language of the em- sonal devices," says Ms. Parker.
Parker. "It's not the same as a conver-
sation you have in your living room."
At companies without a policy,
workers should still expect that their
email won't be private, Ms. Parker
adds.
"As a general matter, most employ-
ees know that a company's IT depart-
ment has access to all emails, that
emails are typically backed up or