Your Employer Can Read Your Emails and Search Your Computer

To defend against an employment lawsuit, it is well within your employer’s rights to read your emails and review your Internet presence. In fact, as any employment lawyer in Orange County can tell you, it is expected that your employer will do these things.

Your Emails Are Fair Game

Your employer will immediately search your computer and all of your e-mails once you file a claim if:

• the employer has a properly drafted and disseminated electronic communications policy that authorizes the employer to access the employees’ email, and
• the employer has notified employees about electronic surveillance, if there are any laws requiring the employer to do so.

If there is no enforceable electronic communications policy in place, or your employer has not complied with any applicable laws, then your employer could be subject to liability for invasion of privacy if it monitors your electronic communications.

 

Google, Yahoo, Bing are Also Fair Game

Besides reading your emails, your employer will most likely do a broad Internet search on you. This may or may not be helpful for the employer’s case. In general, your employer will search for any of the following:

• a personal website
• a blog
• a Facebook page, Twitter account, or similar social networking site
• a resume posted on Career builder, Monster, or similar job placement network.

While these things do not always assist an employer in its investigation, any of these may prove useful to the employer as the case unfolds.

 

What Is the Employer Looking for?

Your employer will be hoping to find:

• a defense (such as previously unknown misconduct by you that, on it is own, would be grounds for termination) and
• potential counter-claims against you.

A skilled employment lawyer in Orange County will tell you to be mentally and emotionally prepared when you file a lawsuit against your former employer. Many of the steps your former employer may take to defend itself can leave you feeling vulnerable.

If you believe you are a victim of an employee rights violation, contact an employment lawyer in Orange County today at 949-861-2524. Reed Aljian and Justin Daily of Daily Aljian LLP can answer your specific employment law questions.