The corporate secret police are watching your email

Businesses are increasingly hiring staff to scrutinise the contents of their co-workers’ outgoing email, according to a Forrester Research survey reported by CNet.

According to the survey, an astounding 41% of large corporates are paying staff to read or analyse employees’ outgoing email to see if they are sending commercially sensitive or confidential information.

It appears the increased scrutiny being applied to workers’ email is a consequence of employers catching employees leaking important information by email, with just under 45% of businesses saying they have investigated an email leak of secret information over the past year.

And the consequences for workers caught out leaking information is serious, with 26% reporting they fired an employee for violating email policies.

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