To what degree is internet activity accessible/retrievable by an employer?

Question

This one's for all the network and computer gurus.

Nowadays it seems every employer has its employees sign a document acknowledging that NONE of the employee's internet activity and internet communications over the company's network are private. We all know that employers can track which websites are visited by its employees, but I've always wondered...

If an employee goes to hotmail.com or gmail.com and logs into their personal e-mail account, can the employer (through its IT/Network Admin) access/retrieve the following:
(A) the password the employee typed to access their email;
(B) the contents of an email the employee sends from their hotmail or gmail account to another hotmail or gmail user;
(C) the content of an email that is in the employee's hotmail or gmail "inbox," and is opened while on the employer's network;
(D) the content of an email that is in the employee's hotmail or gmail "inbox," but is and was NEVER opened while on the employer's network.

Thanks!

Answer 1

While it's certainly possible for them to perform keylogging that would cover A and B, and maybe even record enough traffic to record C, it's, at the very least, shady. (I'd go so far as to call it unethical and borderline illegal, but that's probably going to be debated.) It's a little unlikely, depending on the company, since that could potentially be a *lot* of data getting stored, so unless they've got a particular reason to be recording your every keystroke, chances are, they aren't.



Now D, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that would be going into the "illegal" territory - you never opened the email or brought it on to their servers, so the only way they could get the contents would be to log into your hotmail/gmail account, and read that email - and that would qualify as an unathorized access of the account.



Most of the monitoring that your average company will be doing is a recording of what sites you went to - so they'd be able to tell that you went to hotmail/gmail some 20 times during the course of the day, but not much more. Some companies certainly do a higher level of surveillance than that, but it's typically not worth their time to do so.

Answer 2

While it's possible for an employer to utilize all kinds of spying software to see what their employees are doing, I'm not sure they'd go so far as to try and record your hotmail password. When I taught at a tech school, I had software that allowed me to essentially monitor the desktop of any student in my classroom, and if they needed help, I could actually take over their computer with my mouse and keyboard. I used it mostly to see if they were actually doing their work though. So the content could certainly be viewed.

Answer 3

The answer is that if your employer has a policy stating you cannot use their computers for personal e-mail, etc., then you are basically opening up everything you do if you violate that policy. There are tools that can track websites, keystrokes, screens and nearly everything else you open on a computer network.



If you have the concern, don't open it at work.



Good luck.

Answer 4

Depending on the network settings and software that is running...



A. Yes

B. Yes

C. Yes

D. Yes



In short... never do anything over the internet at work that you would want to be kept private.

Answer 5

if you are working for a decent company. They can trace every site and every page you have visited!

Answer 6

Yes all of these easily google keyloggers

Answer 7

with the right software and know how, everything.