work email access

[plasticpotato]

I was off work recently for two weeks, during that time the password to my emails was changed by senior management without my consent. This has only happened to staff who have resigned or been sacked, no current employees. Other staff members have been off for a lot longer than two weeks and not had their passwords changed.

Since my return I have had my access reinstated but I have noticed senior management have been forwarding emails from my account to their own - nothing dodgy of course....is this legal?

One colleague, for example, has a very important role and was off for almost three months, and their was no access to email accessed.

It's possible that this has made them create a protocol for what to do when someone is off, if nobody had access at the time?

It's quite standard that they'd reset your password and get access to your emails whilst you are off, to keep an eye. The only privacy expectation is if they become aware than an email chain is private, as a PP said, when they should stop reading it.

I wouldn't expect to be contacted whilst off work with stress to be told they were now accessing my emails, I think most people would find that worsened their stress.

You could ask for a policy - I'd be stunned if they don't have this mentioned in a clause about work or IT equipment in your contract, on your intranet if you have one or in a staff handbook, but you could request to see it. I'm not sure what your end goal would be, though. You risk just creating a bit of an atmosphere which could worsen the stress again.

Hi
I used to be an IT engineer if email access was needed your manager would have had to get approval and from hr once you returned it should be turned off speak to your hr if you are concerned as with passwords most organisations would have a password policy of a reset every 6 weeks maybe 2 months don't be afraid to speak to hr they may have forgotten to turn the forwarding off.