Legal Question in Technology Law in Missouri

Email question

Would it be some type of violation of the ECPA for an IT employee to read everyone's e-mail (as well as Supervisors) for personal amusement and share them with other employees while making inappropriate remarks and innuendos? These are business related, not personal e-mails between male and female employees and are apparently being read out loud to anyone that happens to be in the room at the time.


Asked on 6/01/07, 9:59 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Lawrence Graves Coolidge & Graves PLLC

Re: Email question

One would think that there has been sufficient coverage of the fundamental issue in the press: everything typed into a computer in an office belongs to the business, not the employee, so the employee has no legal right to prevent the company from doing whatever it wants with its data. If an employee in the IT department is misusing his access to the company's e-mail system, that is a matter for the company's discipline but is not actionable by other employees. Supervisors have the legal right to review communications sent on the company's system, and most companies routinely conduct checks of employee use of e-mail. [Yet, for reasons that quite escape me, employees are still surprised that their work e-mail is not private.]

Best wishes,

LDWG

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Answered on 6/01/07, 10:12 am


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