MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. — As we mark e-mail's 25th birthday by exchanging more than
143 billion messages a day, it's not all cause for celebration. A new survey
reveals significant misunderstanding among American workers regarding the privacy
of their personal e-mail and other computer activities in the workplace.
A large percentage do not know that even their most personal messages may be stored
electronically and can come back to haunt them or their employer. Just ask former
Florida Congressman Mark Foley, whose improper instant messages to Congressional
pages made the news last month.
WeComply, a business ethics and compliance training provider, today released the
results of a survey entitled Nothing Personal: 2006 Survey of Computer Use at Work.
The survey asked 1,000 U.S. workers whether they thought their personal computer
activities at work remained personal or became business records of their employer.
The survey covered personal e-mails, instant messages (IMs), web searches and word
-processing files created on computers in the workplace.
Among the survey highlights:
- Overall, more than half of all workers did not know that personal e-
mail, IMs and unsent files created on work computers may become business
records.
- Over 40% of those surveyed did not realize that personal web searches on
their work computers could become business records.
- Two-thirds of all workers did not understand that personal IMs to
friends could become business records.
- Younger workers (18-34) tended to be less aware than older ones. More
than half of the younger group (55%) did not understand that sending an
e-mail to a friend created a business record, compared with 39% of those
over 55.
"While we've seen more and more companies issue 'appropriate use' policies and
monitor their employees' computer activities, we wanted to find out if employees
really understood how the policies applied to them - especially to computer
activities they considered personal in nature," said David Simon, WeComply's
founder and president. "As we suspected, most employees don't realize that
virtually anything they do on their work computers is archived somewhere within the
company and could end up in tomorrow's headlines or next year's court records."
Concerns about electronically stored information (ESI) are especially high in view
of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that are scheduled to
take effect December 1, 2006. The amendments establish new procedures for an
orderly exchange of ESI early in the litigation process, thus making it all the
more likely that inappropriate e-mails, web searches, IMs and other ESI will come
to light in pre-trial discovery.
"The better employees understand what winds up as a business record, the less
likely they'll be to use their work computers in ways that jeopardize themselves
and their employers," Simon said. "But these survey findings show that there's
still a long way to go."
Source: WeComply
