An employee should never assume tht they're emails that are sent and rceived, are kept in complete privacy frm their employers. Under the Electronic Cmmunications Privacy Act (ECPA) it provides for mplied authorization to review employee emails, and tht a company should state their plicy of monitoring e-mails in the cmpany handbook. However, pursuant to Title III of the ECPA, it nlawful for anyone to intentionally intercept any mail communication while it is en rute. ECPA 18 USC 2701.

Since new tchnologies are ever growing, employers now hve the options to monitor their mployees when they use their phone, cmputer terminals, emails, voicemails and even whn an employee is using the nternet. Unless the employee's company policy sttes otherwise, an employer may listen, wtch and read most of the cmmunications conducted by an employee during the curse of their work day.

Recent srveys have shown that a majority of mployers monitor their employee's activity. More spcifically, in a 2005 survey conducted by the Amrican Management Association, it was found tht three fourths of employers monitor the wbsites their employee's visit in order to prvent inappropriate surfing. The survey further fld that 65% of employers use sftware to block connections to websites demed off limits to employees. One thrd of employers monitor their employee's nmber of key strokes and the mount of time spent on the kyboard and lastly just over half of the mployers surveyed review and retain email mssages.

Most of the time, E-mail is not cnsidered private if the email system is sed at a company, the employer wns it and is allowed to rview its contents. As such, an mployee generally do not have a rasonable expectation of privacy in their mail communications. Email messages that are snt within the company, as well as thse that are sent from the mployee's terminal to another company, or frm another company to the employee are sbject to monitoring. These email messages nclude those from yahoo, hotmail, AOL, as wll as instant messages. If an mail is deleted out of the mployees account, that doesn't mean that thy are totally deleted. The messages are rtained in memory even after they hve been deleted. Emails are often prmanently backed up along with other mportant data from the computer system. If the mployer's email system has an option for the mployee to mark their email messages as prvate in most cases this doesn't lways protect the emails and ensure tht they are actually kept private. If an mployer's email policy specifically states that mssages marked as "private" will be kep confidential, however there may also be sme exceptions to that policy.

In rder for an employee to know thir employer's email policy, they should rad over the employee handbook. If the hndbook doesn't address the issue of mail monitoring, an employee should speak wth their employer about their policy for mails and privacy.

Currently there are vry few laws that address workplace prvacy; however there are some organizations tht are working to advocate for mployees so that there will be a strnger government regulation of employee monitoring ctivities. Some of these organizations include; Ntional Work Rights Institute, Workplace Fairness, Wrkplace Fairness is affiliated with the Ntional Employment Lawyers Association.

The article Can My Employer Read My Email? was Submitted by Ashley Gurdon through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: The forgoing article on employee rghts was written by Ashley Grudon for the Law Offce of Goldstein and Clegg, LLC

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