Joe Williams: employment lawyer reveals chats on workplace communication tools aren't all that private

Experts are reminding people that employers can see when staff are venting or sharing insults on workplace communication tools.

Two Ministry of Justice staffers who used inappropriate language on Teams to describe academic Barbara Sumner have been made public after she asked for all correspondence mentioning her name.

Employment lawyer Joe Williams explained that anything sent on a work device or any workplace communication tool is fair game.

"The simple point is - if you want to make sure it doesn't happen, then just be a bit guarded about your own data privacy."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather do for Cellen, Right, how about this. If you
have a habit of using colorful language or slagging people
off in your work emails or your work chat on
the phone, you better be careful because your boss might
be able to see more than you think too. Ministry
of Justice staff has got in a bit of trouble
for calling an academic the B word in some Microsoft
Teams messages that have now been made public under the

(00:20):
Official Information Act. Joe Williams is an employment lawyer at
Duncan Coltrol And with us. Now, hey, Joe, he are
you very well? Thank you? Now for the purposes of
this discussion, my boss pays for my phone and gives
me the device, Can he read my emails?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
In a word, yes, unless there's an agreement otherwise. Essentially
the work owns the device, they pay for it, so
they're entitled to access it just as any other.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Tool of trade without telling me.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I think you'll often see workplaces in terms of delivering
these devices to staff giving them to you that there
will be some expectations setting around that. But ultimately you
have to assume, yes, that there's going to be fair
game for employers accessing essentially devices that they own and
data that they own, again, unless there's been in agreement otherwise,

(01:15):
or if there's been particular areas of the device carved
out that are private.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
What about if you are running on your work supply
device a private Gmail account, can they access that?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, so this is an interesting one, and I can
say I've done this as well on my work devices,
as I think a lot of people do. In terms
of an employer going into your personal Gmail accounts and
things like that, I think that potentially would be seen
as invasive. But the simple point is if you want
to make sure it doesn't happen, then just be a
bit guarded about your own data privacy and be logging

(01:48):
out of those accounts on work devices. Ultimately, you don't
own them. You can't be in total control of who
is going to access the stuff that is on them.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
But Joe, you're making it sound like they are able
to access things remotely, like potentially while you're not aware
they are logging on and going through your apps. Is
that what's up?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
I think it would depend a bit on the capabilities
of a business. So you know, large corporates with sophisticated
IT teams, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. And often
there's a very good reason for having you know, an
I T team remote onto someone's device to help them
out with an I issue. For example, smaller smaller businesses
where you're talking giving a small teams and funds to

(02:34):
use and things like that, I'd say it's less likely
to be that active monitoring. But ultimately, if the employer
owns the device, they do have an entitlement to the
data that from it.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Fascinating, Okay, so that would mean basically that it's everything
that you do on your device, right, It's if you're
sending text messages, they'd be able to see if you're
accessing websites like porn, they'd be able to see that stuff,
wouldn't they.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
I mean, to a degree the porn questions interesting, I'd
say yes, and it's probably never a good idea in
the first place to be doing that sort of thing
on a work device. But in terms of private text messages,
I mean, there is a line there in terms of
a reasonable expectation of privacy, and again there's been a
degree to which an employer would be criticized for intruding

(03:19):
into that. But again, the simple messages if you don't
want to have to deal with the situation where that's happened,
just be a bit guarded about your data privacy in
the first place, and you won't get into hot.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Water fascinating stuff. Joe, thank you very much. I really
appreciate it. Joe William's employment lawyer at Duncan Control. For
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Speaker 2 (03:40):
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