Should You Be Monitoring Your Employees' E-Mail and Internet Access?

Most companies provide their employees with e-mail accounts and Internet access. While you shouldn't play "Big Brother," it is important to establish a clear technology policy and communicate it to all your employees. A good technology policy should cover both e-mail and the Internet (although it could also include company phone systems and other technology resources). In addition, you might also want to set up a filter to block access to inappropriate Web sites.

You could do without the filter, but you can't do without the policy. It can help protect you against potential liability, which could come in several forms.

Inappropriate use of e-mail or the Web could result in internal harassment and discrimination claims by employees involuntarily subjected to offensive content at the hands of coworkers. (For example, statistics show that the Playboy home page is one of the most visited Web sites between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

E-mail between supervisors discussing an employee firing might appear as evidence in wrongful termination litigation. And defamatory e-mail sent outside the company could come back to haunt you in the form of a libel suit. But you may violate your employees' privacy rights if you secretly monitor their e-mail or Web access. So what do you do? Defeat any expectation of privacy that your employees may have in use of your technology resources. Let them know that nothing in any e-mail should be considered private and that e-mail and Web usage could be monitored or randomly audited.

Also make sure that your technology policy clearly defines the proper and improper uses of e-mail and Internet access. And let employees know that violations of the policy could lead to disciplinary measures, including termination. Remember, you are paying your employees to do work, not e-mail their pals and shop on eBay. Furthermore, they are using your equipment and thus surrender a certain reasonable amount of privacy.