Nearly half of British IT admins secretly read workers email

Davey Winder
Saturday, 21 June 2008 01:45

Your IT - Home IT

Fullbrook explains that "in some organisations there is little understanding or lack of controls in place to manage workers access to systems. While for those "in the know" they are the keys to the kingdom and if unprotected or fall into the wrong hands wield a great deal of power."

Even where the real currency of admin passwords is understood, managing them is often not. Which is why the Cyber-Ark research also revealed that 9 percent of password never get changed, and 30 percent only once every quarter.

Meanwhile, over in the US, a San Francisco appeals court has ruled that employers cannot read email or other personal data that is not stored on site. This means that in order for a company to access, for example, text messages stored on a mobile phone it would have to apply for a court warrant first.

Either that or get the employees permission. Which is exactly, I suggest, what will be happening in the form of changes to corporate privacy policies throughout the area.

With more mobile devices being used within and without the workplace, and increasingly for personal as well as business communication, this issue is likely to become a hot potato the world over. When was the last time you checked your privacy policy, either as an employer or employee?

Now might be a good time to get both the reading glasses and a lawyer out...