Re:Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal a...
by blitzar on Friday August 20, 2021 @07:27AM
(#28244851)
There is the law and then there are employment contracts. Sometimes these things overlap, intersect or contradict in interesting ways.
I dont think I have ever worked under an IT policy that was anything but 'for work use only' - although that didnt stop me from taking great pleasure at seeing how many work emails were used to sign up for sugardaddie etc whenever they leaked. I was never too fussed - having two phones, two emails, two laptops etc doesn't bother me in the slightest. You lose access to the work phone number / email / storage when you leave anyway so it's really of no use.
I have even come to like the physical separation of work and personal, there are times each needs more than 50% of my attention.
This is also exactly why I always check all the paperwork for "personal usage" of the devices and services provided by the company (email and stuff). If there is nothing about it, I send my mom a random cat picture from my work email (always outside of office hours, in other cases it could be a contract violation). Why? Because if it's not forbidden, you are implicitly allowed to and after at least one private message was sent by the account, it's legally like a private account.
If your employer snoops in the account, it's a massive privacy violation (Datenschutzgesetz and DSGVO/GDPR) and a strong case in employment law. Never needed it, but it's better to be safe than sorry.