What rights, if any, does an employee have in protecting his privacy in the workplace?
When it comes to workplace e-mail, courts have tended to reject privacy claims based on employer monitoring. A handful of courts have held that an employee does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in e-mail communication made over a company e-mail system leaving employees with little recourse against employers that snoop through their e-mail. One federal court went so far as to say that an employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his workplace e-mail even when a company assures him that such communications will not be intercepted. One thing is clear, however: A court is highly unlikely to conclude that an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his e-mail communications when the employer has a policy clearly stating that such communications are subject to monitoring. As such, employers are free to monitor their employees’ use of their networks so long as the company does not violate labor and antidiscrimination laws for example, by targeting union organ
