Are emails at work confidential or privileged?
A reader wondered about communicating with her lawyer from work. In particular, she wondered if such communications are confidential or privileged.
Generally, communications between a client and her lawyer are subject to solicitor-client privilege, and may not be revealed in court.
However, if the client contacts her lawyer from work, and in particular uses her work smartphone, work computer or her employer’s Internet connection, her employer may have access to her communications with her lawyer. This applies even if the client uses her work computer but uses her own web-based email (like Gmail or Hotmail) to send and receive emails with her lawyer.
This is because most employers have an information technology policy which allows the employer to have access to all data stored on an employee’s work computer, as well as access to all data transfers in and out of an employee’s work computer. There is likely a similar policy with respect to smartphones issued by the employer as well.
If an employee absolutely needs to contact a lawyer while at work, I recommend that the employee use their own personal email account on their personal smartphone to do so.
And please remember to make sure the personal smartphone is using your cellular provider’s network, and not the employer’s wifi network.