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Can my admin delete and fake my business email?

Can the administrator of the business delete my emails, send emails from my account without me knowing ? This is a big company so the emailing system is professional

Dave's Answer:

This is a trickier question than it may seem, because it's at the intersection of privacy and corporate intellectual property. I bet you signed an employment agreement when you joined your company, for example, and that agreement states that the company basically owns everything you do on work time, with work equipment. This, of course, extends to email and a surprising number of companies monitor employee email, with the tacit blessing of the courts.

On the other hand, the law is still a bit gray here, hence "tacit" in the sentence above. For example, the Duke Law and Technology Review writes: "Employer monitoring of electronic mail constitutes an emerging area of the law that is clearly unsettled at this point in time. This brief demonstrates that the privacy rights of non public-sector employees are relatively unprotected by the federal and state constitutions, broad judicial interpretations of enacted privacy legislation favor legitimate employer-monitoring practices, and many of the elements of common law claims are difficult for employees to prove."

On the same topic, the American Management Association comments that "Computer monitoring takes various forms, with 36% of employers tracking content, keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. Another 50% store and review employees’ computer files. Companies also keep an eye on e-mail, with 55% retaining and reviewing messages."

Clearly, it's not uncommon for you to find that your email is being monitored. What you're asking about, however, goes beyond passive monitoring and moves into invasive, malicious activities. if you can document that an administrator is actually going into your email account and deleting mail, and far worse, masquerading as you to send out messages, I would definitely bring it up immediately with both your supervisor and someone in HR.

Whether it's legal or not -- and I surmise that it is indeed illegal to masquerade as someone else when you're sending email unless you have their explicit permission -- it's certainly unethical and unprofessional and you shouldn't have to stand for it.

Good luck with this challenging situation.

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Categorized: Business and Management (Article 7186)
Tagged: corporate ethics, email monitoring, information technology, privacy
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Comments

I think you may have misinterpreted his question similar to "Can I" vs. "May I".

I read it as, "Is it possible..." and your answer implies that it is, but I don't think it directly answered the question.

So, my two cents...

Yes, it is possible for an administrator to delete emails and send them out posing as you. However, if your organization is using Microsoft Exchange servers, an administrator would have to change the default permissions to allow access for themself or they would have to know your password because by default, administrators do NOT have full access to your mailbox. (But since an administrator has full access to changing permissions, etc, they certainly could do what you are inquiring about.

Jeffrey B. Kane
TechSoEasy

Posted by: TechSoEasy at February 14, 2007 1:22 AM

I've had this question and the "Can you see what I'm looking at online?" brought up numerous times being the IT Tech at our company and the answer is always "Yes". Chances are that one way or another if the company wants to monitor you, they can but to date I've never done so and I'd imagine most IT employees don't care too unless explicitly asked too by their supervisor/boss. Our lives are hectic enough as it is without having to watch over your shoulder.

Joe Beeson

Posted by: Joe at February 15, 2007 6:54 PM

The answer to this question is YES. The administrator can reset your password then login as you and send a message. No serious administrator would do this. Most hosted mail systems do NOT allow the administrator to read user mail. (Even though he can create, delete and otherwise manage accounts). -Migs

Posted by: Miguel Reznicek at February 22, 2007 6:08 AM

Working with mailserver software on a daily basis, I see both ends of this question daily (both admins and employees have asked me if this was possible).

Short answer yes. It has been my experience that usually admins that take advantage of this do so on the cuff, without a serious plan. If you suspect this to be happening, save your email headers and ask some level of system administrator (either within your company or not) to check them out. If they look suspect, you can have them checked against server logs and usually find one or two instances of an email being sent where you may not have been able to. E.g. if you are in a meeting for two hours (a perfect time for a disgruntle admin to sabotage your email) and the server logs say an email was sent 30 minutes after your meeting started........ This is only one possible place to start and I wouldn't recommend going around throwing out accusations without careful thought. If you are the victim of such an action, some planning and care regarding your actions could make all the difference. It is possible to restore your integrity while keeping it. Good Luck.

Posted by: Jason at February 25, 2007 11:51 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!