Don't most corporations already have this policy? I certainly expect none of my corporate email to be private and I think as a general rule people should expect any of their email correspondance (corporate or private) to be considered 'postcard mail'.

The whole subject of e-mail monitoring and retention within the United Kingdom is subject to a whole host of conflicting legislation - the Data Protection Act (DPA), Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and the Human Rights Act (HRA) are the most important.

Effectively exemptions to Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act outline that you can monitor employee's email, but the Human Rights Act states that employees have a right to privacy. The Data Protection Act states that you can only retain e-mails for as long as they need processing - that includes compliance to other legislation and protection from civil prosecution.

There is so much confusion that in 2005 the Information Commissioner issued the Employer Practices Code to which lays out what is expected of employers.

The generally accepted way to legally monitor employee's e-mail in the UK is to cover the following key areas:

• Employers need to ensure that they have a clearly stated email Acceptable Use Policy which states e-mail is corporate property, lays out the monitoring undertaken and defines the retention period. This Acceptable Use Policy must be signed by the user.


• Employers need to remove the expectation of privacy if they are to perform monitoring. This is normally written into the Acceptable Use Policy by defining why it is technically difficult to separate personal and corporate email.


• The Acceptable Use Policy must be enforced, it is hard to see an dismissal through if the employee can say they have been victimised during an employee tribunal - enforcing the Acceptable Use Policy for them and not other users we be a grounds for unfair dismissal.


• For e-mail to be considered corporate property, it must be on 'corporate stationary'. This effectively means that all the legally required details for any corporate stationary must be added to the disclaimer.

James