Your Personal Email Is Not Safe: You Best Watch What You Say

On May 30, 2008 a New Jersey State Superior Court determined that emails sent and received on a private email service are subject to legal discovery under the Freedom of Information Act. This ground-breaking ruling relates specifically to emails that were exchanged between NJ Governor Jon S. Corzine and Carla Katz, a state union leader he once dated. However, the implications of this ruling are expected to have a widespread impact. In short, your personal email is not safe.

According to a recent Proofpoint study, 34% of the largest companies (20,000 employees or more) reported that employee email was subpoenaed in the last 12 months. While the data does not specify the inclusion of employee’s personal email, the precedent set by the NJ State Superior Court indicates that what you write in your personal email (eg: Gmail, YahooMail) can be subpoenaed. While there exist other examples of employee’s personal email being called into court; these cases were limited to emails accessed through corporate servers (ie: when you access Gmail in the office, the gloves come off). However, this ruling seems to indicate that messages sent from home or your mobile device are fair game too; especially if they mention business matters.

Many experts advise that you use a personal email account for non-work related email. However, it now seems that anything you say or do online can be used against you. The bottom line: It doesn’t matter where you write it, anything you write online can be used against you.

My advice: Never mention anything business-related in your personal emails. If you are not comfortable sending a message through your work account, you probably shouldn’t send it through your personal account.