Do you think that employers read microsoft teams chats?

[Larna4t]

I don't mean group chats , I mean 1-1 chats between employees. My colleague in my last workplace was absolutely convinced of it. She said that her boss would bring up things that she had said in 1-1 chats with colleagues.

Can workplaces access all team chats as it is a work communicatiom, even 1-1 chats?

The IT worker might not have access but the law states you can access whenever you want. You don’t have ownership over information shared on a work account.

Cannot see that post having just read the whole thread but I can see endless people telling you they can access.

They are able to access but they dont have the right to access without due reason

The IT worker on this thread wrote that she would be dismissed if she accessed peoples emails

Not unless they had concerns.

Yea but theres a difference between being able to access, and having the right to access

IT workers can access pretty much everything in a workplace. But They don't have the right to access anything unless there is due reason for access.

They cant just read all of their colleagues emails just because they are nosy for example

Again - the employer has the legal right. How that is administered day to day is different but they have the legal right to access anything on their accounts.

And AGAIN,

the IT worker wrote on this thread that she would be sacked for gross misconduct, if she read through her colleagues emails.

Are you saying shes wrong?

No I’m saying her job doesn’t allow her to. Because she isn’t permitted to. But the owner of the business and anyone with the delegated authority has the right to access all messages.

That's her workplace's policy, not a law. Your employer can legally access absolutely everything you do on their systems. Indeed, in regulated sectors they might be required to track and monitor everything.

It’s an employee specific work place policy as well. Not the same as the law.

Yes the employer could say that in court.

i hink that someone could also probably argue in court that they are entitled to a reasonable degree of privacy.

They could also argue that if they are not informed that work emails are accessed, then its not fair to use that information against them.

At least in my work they can't access them easily and read them for funsies. They can apply for access if they have a reason.

The reasonable degree of privacy is called you don’t have to use your work device for personal messages. There is no protection. Employers always retain liability. They can access all messages. There is no exception.

Apply to who?

Yes, this, exactly. They record everything but cannot view without good reason.

Again, that's internal policy, not law, and it governs which employees have that access, and when, and for what reasons. There will always, always be someone in IT who has the authority both to access any of it at any time, and to grant access to other people.

They could argue that but get precisely nowhere. It's common knowledge that all systems have the potential to be monitored and you'd have to be spectacularly stupid to put anything on a work communication that you didn't want your boss to see.
But from your responses to other posters who have very patiently tried to explain this to you, I'm beginning to think that there's no getting this through to you.

They should definitely inform people better on what recording/tracking devices are used.

In my last job i knew that our calls were recorded

However no boss or policy told me that the screen on my computer was also recorded during phonecalls. These screen recordings were viewed every week
When i received a phonecall i had to access a certain customer system on the computer.

I had no problem with that customer system being recorded.

However when i had been on a phonecall, other people would send me teams messages. I would open them and those personal messages would also be recorded as my screen was being recorded. If id known my screen was being recorded , i woudnt have opened any messages.
A manager eventually told me my screem was being recorded, three months after i started the job
Surely i should have beem informed at the start

And you don't have an "entitlement to privacy" when you're on a work computer, using work systems. Your employer has paid for both those things and given you access to them so you can do work. You have zero entitlement to go "no, my work is private and I'm not letting anyone see it", for obvious reasons. If you want things to be private, use a personal device.

Unless you use the desktop version of WhatsApp…

Know people who got fired for a convo they had over desktop WhatsApp.

The thing to remember is that anything you write on a work system can be disclosed for an FOI or SAR request. So you should never write anything you are uncomfortable with the world.seeing. A colleague called someone a very very rude word on teams and when they requested.a SAR it caused them real problems

They can - monitoring is a reason. It’s weird how many people think they know the law without knowing the law.

right back at ya - I worked in IT for a law firm!

There’s no way you weren’t told that all data belongs to the employer. I’ve had endless people telling me they weren’t told but actually they were and just didn’t understand the legalities.

Please do cite the law that you think gives you ownership or privacy rights when using company accounts.