Comment by prepend
1 day ago
Since it’s work communications, consent was already given.
When you join a company, you typically sign an agreement that talks about how the company owns all your output. Thumbs upping a Teams message is work output and they own it.
Every email sent and received. Every keystroke. Etc etc etc.
If you don’t want your employer to log and sell it, start your own company. Or use a personal device. I do the latter.
I don't know the US law, but surely in Europe specifically every private conversation is private, period. No matter if it's work email, your company cannot read the emails directed at your company mailbox by its initiative (of course in case it's needed a judge can ask it to be taken as evidence), nor it can read the files on your computer, or anything similar, no matter if the device it's company provided, because it would be considered the same as using a camera to spy on the employee, that is of course illegal.
Of course if it's shared communication media (e.g. a mailing list) it can, but not at your private address, no matte if it's @company.com, it's considered the same as your private email.
It heavily depends on country if employer can access the email or not. For example in Italy:
> Italian Supreme Court case law according to which defensive controls may be carried out where there is a well-founded suspicion of unlawful conduct, provided that an appropriate balance is struck between the employer’s interests and the employee’s dignity and privacy, and that the control concerns data acquired after the suspicion arose.
That's not consent. It's a one-sided condition of employment. Consent would imply a meeting of the minds and a way for each employee to negotiate, or opt-out without losing employment.
It's like saying I consent to my phone company's 200 page long terms and conditions.
Corporate America has a very fucked up definition of consent, and they seem to have spread that definition broadly.