Having my emails read without permission by an employee?

Question

I am having problems at work with people logging onto my email account and they are reading private communications from my brother which are discussions with regard to our company. Including employee Information. Can anyone tell me where I stand on Discipline?

Answer 1

change the password

Answer 2

Who are the people reading your emails? Is it your PA/secretary? If yes, and they need to have access to your account, then there's not much you can do. All PAs read their boss's personal emails, it's the only was to survive in such a boring job. But anyway, if this is the case then in terms of discipline, there is nothing you can do, as you have given her access to your account. You may like to review whether she really needs access to your Inbox, and restrict/remove access if necessary.



If it is an IT support person or someone and they are hacking in without your permission, then yes, it would be appropriate to discipline them. If you don't already have a set policy regarding this, then it would be acceptable to fire them on the spot, although I personally wouldn't do this. They would first get a written warning, with further action to be taken if this behaviour continued.



If it is neither of these people, then who is it that could possibly get into your account? I assume from your question that you are the CEO or at least someone very senior within the company, and if so, it is up to you to review IT policies and security to ensure that people cannot read your mail. If you work for the type of organisation that has shared email accounts (i.e. one address for a whole department, not one person) then you really should not be sending confidential emails from it. It's only natural that people will be a little bit nosy.



But I would also like to know how you are so sure that your emails are being read.

Answer 3

If I am reading your correctly you and your brother are the boss of the company.



So #1 get a techie in and get the software set up so that you can password all the email accounts.



#2 Until then get yourself a Yahoo email address and use that for any private conversation.



Re legals- The company owns the emails on their server and has been said already can read the emails. Also using company resources for priviate emails opens the company up to liability and means that staff are misusing company property - hence the above (in the UK anyway).



Re discipline. You rather let yourself in for this as you have not kept the information secure. Send a formal email to everyone stating that they should 1)only use their own email accounts. 2)only use compay email for company purposes. State that you have a logging facility that tells you who logged in and when. Also state that misuse will be a disciplinary offense and state the consquences of this misuse.



This will stop them and if they don't stop give you a recourse. You really need to keep company information secure in the meantime.



Not sure about the email set up but if you have given rights to people to read your email -then remove them!

Answer 4

Yes, they can do anything they want with email. Since it's a corporate resource, it's "my server, my rules". Many companies will even explicitly have you sign a piece of paper acknowledging they can read or monitor your email any time they want. From your description of the screening process it sounds like they may have implemented a challenge/response system, that only allows people who have contacted them already (and you have to perform an extra step if you haven't). It's at least some sort of anti-spam system. He may have reported your previous emails as unwanted and your subsequent ones were then flagged as inappropriate. Also, many companies are instituting email archiving solutions, since most lawsuits now ask for any emails that may be pertinent to the case. They have to be able to search for these, so yes they can tell you sent over 25 messages. If the person complained to IT, they would probably check their archive first. So yeah, threatening people in email is a bad idea. Just like Google is forever, email can be too. Keep it civil, and keep it professional. Never hit send if you wouldn't want hundreds of people to read it, because who knows where it'll end up. You can't take back email.

Answer 5

The company has every right to review all email communications through the company email account. They also have the right to review anything and everything on the company computer.



Now, if they were logging onto your personal email account, they would be in the wrong. If you had checked this email on your company computer, they could, however, access any files that were downloaded onto your computer.



If these other employees do not have authority to view the contents of your email (such as, you deal with work info of a confidential manner to which these employees have no rightful access) that would be a problem.



However, anything you do on your work computer or company provided applications (such as email) is NOT your private property or communication.



I'm also wondering why you were sending your brother employee information. That is a big no-no.



It sounds like your company's computer security is at risk and they need to institute password changing and the like. It also sounds like you are screwed.

Answer 6

How did they get your password in order to log into your email? Try changing your current password. Also, try and minimise the personal communication at work. The more interesting things you talk about the more they will want to keep logging onto your emails. Just be professional at work or create another account for personal emails.

Answer 7

why are you using an open e-mail system to discuss your employees with someone outside the company. you are asking for trouble. if your e-mail system is not secure, and it should be, it is not covered by data protection and you could not use the discipline procedure to deal with this unless the message was forwarded on to someone else by the person who opened it. it could be claimed the opening of the message was a mistake but the forwarding of it not a mistake but malicious. u have no control over what comes into your mail box but you do on what goes out.

Answer 8

is it your work email or is it a personal email account? if it is a personal email account then you need to figure out how then found out your password. if it is your work email account then that is a little different. because the company has the right to search any employees account

Answer 9

dont use a company email to send and receive personal emails.



How did the receptionist manage to get your email password.

Answer 10

If password protected then only you, and those you tell the password to can access your mail, if you give out your password then what do you expect, if you don't have password protection then get it set up

Answer 11

Get a new E Mail address for your personal mail, something this employee wouldn't know.

Answer 12

remove the pc,or get individual email accounts and password protect them.

Answer 13

use a free personal email address. you have to be careful what goes through company emails. it belongs to them.

Answer 14

Password protect your account so that only you can access it.

Answer 15

how did they get your password is what i would be asking myself