Recent studies show that three quarters of companies do monitor employee’s usage of company owned communication devices and resources. This includes surfing the internet, reviewing employee phone calls and employee e-mail monitoring. Monitoring devices and software aids your company in protecting it from abusive employees and legal liabilities. But you should also be aware that monitoring employee’s activities through monitoring software is only allowable within certain boundaries and limitations.

Why is monitoring important for your network protection?

Institutions, especially those belonging to financial sectors like banks and insurance firms, embrace the use of monitoring devices and software to protect data on the company’s network and ensure that their employees are using valuable resources for the benefit of the company. Many companies have various issues with employee’s stealing valuable data from their restricted files and trading them to competitors for profit and personal gain. Others engage in misdemeanor and ill behavior at work and can use your company’s communication devices to harass other co-workers. Surfing pornographic websites, sending offensive e-mails and engaging in illegal activities may also put your business at risk when proven to be sent through or stored on your company’s system. This could clearly damage your company’s reputation and waste company resources such as time and money.

How to protect network from abusive employees?

Many institutions embrace the use of monitoring devices and software to protect data from the company’s network and ensure that employees are using valuable resource for the benefit of the company. Monitoring software filters any information that is received or sent through your company network. It detects any malicious or inappropriate content running through the system and immediately notifies the administrator who is authorized to view the all the company’s files. You should also consider that pornographic materials and vulgar content may not only be stored in your system. Other devices like personal cell phones, CDs and multimedia devices may also be used to access such files. E-mails can also contain inappropriate contents and images. Having monitoring software established within the system will protect your company network and your business as well.

Is monitoring employee e-mails legal?

Generally, the law allows private companies to monitor employee e-mails during work hours with few significant exceptions. Privacy has been a continuous issue among non-private sector organisation and company discussions. Many are expressing their different views and concept about privacy and up to what extent it is tolerable to keep the privacy rights of your employees is still unsettled at this moment.

Considerations of employee e-mail monitoring

It is your right as the employer to read your employee e-mails especially during work hours and using company’s network. But a policy should be clearly defined in your company that all e-mails sent and received by employees through the company’s system are kept confidential. A system maybe installed on your company’s network that will detect private and confidential e-mails by formulating private passwords only known to your employees themselves.

By Simona Rusnakova



This article was submitted by Simona Rusnakova, SEO consultant of http://www.3r.ie, on behalf of Pixalert – http://www.pixalert.com - Data Loss Prevention, Email Monitoring Solution, Porn at Work. PixAlert is the market leader in products and services that provide detection of critical data.