How much privacy should employees expect when using corporate devices, especially email? The Wall Street Journal put this question to The Experts, an exclusive group of industry, academic and other thought leaders who engage in in-depth online discussions of topics from the print Report. This question relates to a recent article that debated whether companies should be required to meet certain minimum cybersecurity protections and formed the basis of a discussion in The Experts stream on Tuesday, May 14.

Carl Wiens

The Experts will discuss topics raised in this month's Big Issues: Technology Report and other Wall Street Journal Reports. Find the leadership Experts stream, video and other online content at

Also be sure watch three of The Experts —McKinsey's managing director, Dominic Barton, Harvard Business School's Rosabeth Moss Kanter (@RosabethKanter) and the Wharton School's Karl Ulrich—discuss the implications of new workplace technology in a live video chat that aired Monday, May 13.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Think Before You Press Send

Employees should expect some rights (e.g. to fairness, voice and due process) but not all that much privacy. It's a good idea not to put anything in an email that you'd regret later. When a former CEO of Boeing left a trail of correspondence with a woman with whom he was having an affair, what was he thinking? How did he possibly imagine that this would not be discovered, and that his poor judgment might cost him his job? It's way too easy to hit Send. Worse is hitting Reply All when you don't intend to make your personal life a global sensation. Still, employers should not have free license to examine employees' email accounts whimsically, without a good reason. We need to create better boundaries for handling this new transparent world.


Robert Profusek: How Much Privacy? Pretty Much None.

In my view, essentially none absent highly extraordinarily unusual circumstances. The law governing workplace-privacy expectations, including privacy of employee personal communications using the employer's devices and communications facilities, favors, as it should, the employer's legitimate interests in protecting its assets against waste, confidentiality and assuring a lawful workplace environment. This is enhanced by clear, well-communicated corporate policies that eliminate employee expectations of privacy and acknowledge employer monitoring rights. However, technology is always changing and many changes, such as use of personal devices (so-called BYOD) and social-media platforms for work-related purposes, may pose additional challenges to the employers' ability to monitor employee communications. This is because an expectation of privacy arguably could be said to be greater in this context than it is with respect to communications over exclusively employee-owned devices and communication facilities. As such, while the law generally recognizes legitimate employer interests here, employers should review their policies in this area on a regular basis to keep up with the ever-changing technologies, take appropriate steps to communicate them to employees and if need be (which can only be determined on a company-by-company basis) take actions designed to provide protection against employee claims through annual policy certifications and other measures.


Kenneth Freeman: Assume You Have No Privacy

Employees should assume that any communications using corporate devices are both accessible to and owned by their employers. Always assume that any written or photographed communication—email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.—has the potential of public disclosure. Adopting the old tenet of treating others with dignity, fairness and respect helps to ensure the employee's personal reputation and that of his or her company.


Jay Hooley: It's a Delicate Balance

This isn't a matter of privacy as much as it is one of security. Most people understand that in today's digital world, it's important to monitor and regulate corporate devices, especially in industries like financial services. Every organization must strike that delicate balance of protecting sensitive, proprietary data and giving employees technologies that improve productivity.
