Can my employer review my personal messages or emails?

Privacy is a right recognized in several countries, including ours. However, it is not always configured or understood in the same way when it comes to spaces such as work. Typically, employers have access to the institutional machines and emails that they provide as a company.

That is why if you ever wondered if your employers could legally access your messages that you receive and send in email or Slack, the Google Workspace application for chatting, labor law specialist, Germán Lora, He explained it for La República.

Can my employer review my personal messages or emails?

The specialist explained that there is no rule that regulates the issue in Peru. Although there are judicial pronouncements, there is no defined criterion. A lot will depend on how the company acts and informs regarding the use of institutional emails under the domain of the company itself.

“From my point of view, if the company informs that these emails are the property of the company and that the company will permanently be able to review them because they are its property, then the worker will be clear that he cannot send through those emails with domain of the company personal things,” said the specialist.

One of the few statements argues that, although these emails are from the company, they should not be considered instruments lacking certain elements of personal privacy. This is because it is a fundamental right that must be respected under the limitations and guarantees provided for by the Political Constitution of the State.

“As established in article 2, paragraph 10) of our fundamental norm, every person has the right to have their communications and private documents adequately protected, as well as to ensure that they and the instruments that contain them cannot be opened. , seized, intercepted or intervened except by reasoned order of the judge and with the guarantees provided by law. Although, certainly, it can be argued that the source or support of certain communications and documents belong to the company or entity in which a worker works, this does not mean that it can assume exclusive and exclusive ownership of such communications and documents,” commented the specialist.

Likewise, the Court explained that although the privacy of employment is respected, this does not mean that it can take precedence over labor obligations, so that the latter end up being distorted or denatured.

“In such cases, it is evident that the employer not only can, but must, make use of its supervisory and even disciplinary power. However, in such cases, the only way to determine the validity, or not, of a A measure of this nature is, firstly and as already anticipated, to respect the limitations established by the Constitution and, secondly, to implement reasonable mechanisms that allow, without distorting the content of the rights involved, to meet the labor objectives to which that the workers and the employing entities to which they belong are compromised,” he said.

Likewise, the lawyer reported that for these issues it is important to create policies for the use of digital tools, which are duly informed so that there are no misunderstandings.

Finally, the specialist recommended that workers take care of what personal information they save or display on the workplace computers they use, since employers can also review these.

“If I had a personal WhatsApp I would not open it on my company computer because they can review it, since it is their property. We must respect the work tools,” concluded the specialist.