Email Fraud

Professional handling of mails is vital within an organisation since it is widely used for transfer of equipment and material in the business. Improper handling of mails could result in loss of business / customers / suppliers and economic losses.

Never misuse or use email for personal use. Never share your password with anyone. Sharing business records and or information with anyone outside the office can become a legal matter. All passwords should be changed on a quarterly basis. And the system will prompt you to do so. Always be accountable for your actions, follow the office guidelines when it comes to regular password changes and keep your supervisor\manager in the loop. When everyone has the same understanding, they know what to expect!

In a business environment it’s essential that you have correct mail handling procedures in order to keep information safe and secure this can be client’s details, account details, personal information of employees etc. This needs to be protected in order to avoid illegal misuse of data and personal information leading to fraudulent activities.

This view is upheld in many courts. One such case is the McLoren v. Microsoft, and Smyth v. Pillsbury. Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, explain, in the case of McLoren v. Microsoft, McLoren was part of a harassment investigation, and Microsoft broke into McLoren’s password protected personal e-mail folder to gather evidence. McLoren claimed, the password protected folder was like a personal locker, for personal items. The court rejected the argument, stating the e-mail was first received in the inbox of the e-mail provided by Microsoft and moving it to a personal folder is no exception (Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, 2006). In Smyth v. Pillsbury Company, Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, explain, Smyth sent unprofessional comments in an e-mail, from home to his supervisor. Pillsbury fired Smyth. The courts upheld this action, because the e-mail was retrieved from storage at the company owned servers (Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, 2006). With these examples of employees misusing company communication equipment, employers must monitor employees to avoid legal liability.

Correct Answer: fails to protect employees in most situations involving e-mail monitoring by public and private employers.

Many business owners must examine what is at risk when they communicate sensitive data over email. The first thing is to make sure that a good virus protection software is install and updated on everyone computer place. Second it is good that all key departments within the organization, such as legal IT and H, understand the policies; require them to sign off on the email filtering, retention, retrieval and analysis policies (Small Business Computing Staff, 2011).

This section of the employee handbook is provided as a guideline for employees to understand the company policy and procedures regarding privacy in the workplace. While this section cannot address every possible scenario that may occur, the general policy will serve as a basis of understanding the key workplace issues and employee privacy. This section addresses privacy issues related to personal background information, off-work activities, and the corporate policy on the use of electronic monitoring. These privacy policies are designed to both provide a clear guideline for employees on the difference between job related and personal privacy. The policies are designed to create a standard set of

The most common form of an invasion, to employee privacy rights is email. With the massive use of computers, email has become the biggest communication tool of choice in the workplace. The concern of employers has grown tremendously with the use of email in the workplace. Employers' concern is that, employees can waste time by sending and receiving email for personal use, and they may provide easy access for hackers to entry their computer system. Employers can monitor an employee computer activity to ensure productivity in the workplace. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2006) states, "Unfortunately, if an employee uses a company computer for email use, the employee employer has the right to review the contents of his or her email."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse went over computer and workstation monitoring, email monitoring, telephone monitoring, mobile device monitoring, audio and video monitoring, GPS tracking, postal mail and social media monitoring. Employers are able to see what is on your screen, how much time you spend away from your computer and how many keystrokes per hour each employer does. Employers are able to discretely monitor employees with certain computer equipment. Employees may not know they are being monitored. Employers can review email content. Even though the message may have an option for marking an email as private, the company may still have access to the email. You should assume that your work emails are not private. Even though you may delete your emails, the company still has access to them also.

Usage of personal technologies – Employee may not use its own personal e-mail or social media accounts for transmitting business related

This technique must be in accordance with the guidelines and regulation of AFL-CIO. For establishments’ email policies, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) published significant and governing policies. Communication Workers of America and Purple Communications, which is AFL-CIO, the National Labor Relation Board depicted that the establishment’s email access which is granted to the workforces, the workforces can utilize this access of system for non-business purposes; however, within the depicted reach. As per this regulation of NLRB the proprietors must assess their existing policies and manufacture the forthcoming policies accordingly. Businesses must position assessments which the subordinate must provide the access to and to what degree. To be consistent with the guidelines of Purple Communication which is AFL-CIO the proprietors must examine their existing technology and mailing system and the monitoring polices additionally. If any proprietor aspires to limit the access it must be followed by the appropriate explanations and rationales. (Katz. M. and Austen, J.,

I. Employees have complete expectation of privacy since they can select their password for in-house and remote access of e-mails. II. A subpoena is required by the employer to read any e-mail that is clearly marked “confidential” by the employee. III. No expectation of privacy exists over an employer-owned computer system at work. IV. Statement by the employer that e-mails are confidential and privileged cannot be later used by an employer to defeat an employee’s claim of privacy

The second scenario is “After being disciplined for criticizing a customer in an email (sent from his personal email account on a company compute), Joe threatens to sue the company for invasion of privacy. In this case the company was right in disciplining Joe, because he not only used the company’s computer to possible damage a relationship with a customer, but he tried to cover it up by using his personal email address. The whole problem with this is that he used the company computer to access his personal email, which opens his personal email up to be monitored when utilizing the company’s network/wifi. Also, with his law suit, it has been proven that when utilizing the company owned material, you are subject to surveillance. A good example is in the text with Michael A. Smyth v. The Pillsbury Company. The judge found that the company had a write to access the email because during surveillance, there was proof of wrong doing that could potentially

As an example I would like to describe my experience working at a relatively small fruit import company. The management of this firm gets information, makes orders, and carries almost all negotiations via the e-mail. "To minimize the risk of any disclosure or loss of confidential data, it is important to understand where the risks are, and implement office management practices and appropriate technology to ensure all of your data remains confidential and secure," advises article IDS: Classification (2002, December4). The potential loss or disclosure of information could occur through various ways: vulnerabilities of operation systems (mostly Microsoft products), vulnerabilities of e-mail software, viruses and malicious software, and weak passwords. It is relatively easy to protect electronic information in this case, but it does take some time and effort, which could be difficult for managers, who do not have an expertise in computers.

The issue of employers’ and employees’ rights has always brought controversy in most companies. Some rights are expressly known like the right of employees to get paid after working for the agreed period of time among others. However, there are those things done by the employers that most employees feel are too private. Employees feel that some things done by the employers are an intrusion to their privacy. This paper will discuss issues on whether the employer has a right to review the employees’ email. It will look at both the employers and the employees’ perspective and what the law says about the issue.