Email In The Workplace

12 Pages 2883 Words

E-Mail in the Work Place

Steve McAlpin

IFSM 304

November 13, 2004

Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2
Abstract 3
Introduction 4
The Employee’s View 4
The Employer’s View 6
Legal Issues 9
Technology 11
Conclusion 12
Bibliography 14


Abstract

This paper will look into both the employee’s and the employer’s point of view on e-mail privacy. It will cover topics that include; ethical issues of employees using a company’s e-mail system for personal use, the legal rights employee’s have verses the employer rights to monitor employee’s e-mail, new laws covering e-mail privacy in the workplace, legal differences between telephone privacy and e-mail privacy, how employers are protecting themselves from lawsuits associated with e-mail, private verses Government aspects of e-mail privacy, new software to keep your e-mail private. It will be the readers’ responsibility at the conclusion of this paper to judge at what point we as a society draw the line in respect to e-mail privacy and is it ethical in the workplace.

Introduction
Email is fast becoming the preferred choice of communication with most people, because people can send and read messages whenever and wherever they choose, and of course it is faster than old snail mail, and definitely more convenient then playing phone tag. Because Email is a lot like regular mail, you would think that its privacy is legally protected, but guess again. The first issue we will look into is the employee’s view of how in general they feel about Email and its use in the workplace then we will look at the employers view and lastly we will look at the legal side of the issue. After covering these views, we will look at how the employer is protecting themselves and what the employee is doing to combat these issues.
The Employee’s View
The average individual, who uses Email, believes that their Email is private and secure. They believe that the use o...