Ethics about Personal Use of Email at Work

Take what you have learned in this class and tell me if it is ethical for employees to use company email for personal use, and in turn is it ethical for employers to read all of an employee’s email?

It is a matter of solid fact that employees working in different corporations use the company’s email for their personal use which can be said as highly unethical and unhealthy practice. It is not at all ethical for the employees to use the company’s email for personal use because it creates a number of ethical issues as described below:

• Primarily, the email provided by the company is solely for the company’s work. Companies don’t provide the emails to their employees so they may use it for their personal work. Instead, they provide it to use for professional work. Hence, it can be said as unethical to use that email for personal use.
• Secondly, the European Court of Human Rights has just rules that employers have the right to spy on staff’s work emails and they can read all the electronic messages and an employee’s email(Sanghani, 2016).

On the other hand, if the scenario is discussed in terms of employers accessing the personal emails of employee, it also seems highly unethical. Though an employee should not use the company email for their personal use but if someone is doing so, it is an ethical obligation of the employer to not spy on his personal emails. Instead, company can look up for some other solutions to stop its employees using the email for personal work.

The company can personally tell the employees that using the email for personal use would result in their privacy being challenged and their all personal emails will be in access of company. Knowing this, no employee would like to use the company email for personal use.

Bibliography

Sanghani, R. (2016). Your boss can read your personal emails. Here’s what you need to know. The Telegraph UK.