When does killing time at work become an invasion of privacy, asks Daniel Kavan
In my previous career as a lawyer, before I started working in e-discovery some eight years ago, I often used to send personal e-mails from my work e-mail account. Sometimes they included jokes which may have embarrassed me if read by someone else, especially out of context. But now I never send personal e-mails from my work account. Not even innocent messages to my mum. Years of working on investigations and litigation matters where entire corporate mailboxes—including extremely personal e-mails—were reviewed by teams of lawyers, have cured me of any naivety on this subject: someone will trawl through my work mailbox one day. But what if they could also access everything I write on my personal webmail, including instant chats?
Business or pleasure?
While the nationals of some European countries, for example Germany and France, have an expectation of privacy even in their work e-mails (and investigations which require the reading of such e-mails require permission of the individual custodian of
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