by KYW's Amy Feldman
A principal at a high school in Florida was fired this month when it was discovered through a check of his email that he’d sent explicit and inappropriate emails to a female staff member and also a female teacher. And while most are 100% clear on why the school should have a right to read all emails sent from its system, they are not nearly as happy at the thought that their personal employer could do the same. When can your boss read your personal emails?
There is no right to privacy in the e-mails that you send, read, or receive from your office computer, and employers have a virtually unfettered right to see everything that's stored on their system. There are programs available that allow employers to take "screen shots" or pictures of every screen you view—and even those that can record your every keystroke. Think that porn habit is private? Think again. Think that when you call up your personal e-mail account with your personal password on the company's computer it's private? Think again. Not only can your employer see what you are reading and writing on the screen, it can take action against you for it. If you think getting fired is bad, imagine how the principal will explain to one girlfriend why he was writing explicit emails to another.
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