Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Legal Q&AHR practiceHR strategyComputer misuse

Weekly dilemma: Dealing with a deceased employee’s emails

by Personnel Today 9 Dec 2011
by Personnel Today 9 Dec 2011

A senior member of staff died in an accident recently and I am uncertain as to how to deal with his emails. He has several personal folders and thousands of emails relating to non-workplace matters. What should we do?

First of all, it is good practice for businesses to have an email usage policy in place that implements proportionate monitoring of employee emails. Before implementing any email usage policy, an impact assessment should be completed considering the reason why it is necessary to monitor staff emails: for example, to ensure that relevant business practices or regulations are being complied with. Make sure that the methods used to monitor emails are proportionate to meet the reason they are in place.

The now-deceased staff member should have been informed that his emails might be monitored, the reason for this and to whom the emails will be shown. He should also have been asked to sign a consent form confirming that he agreed to his emails being monitored in this way.

The emails should be held securely and access to them should be restricted to a limited number of staff – all of whom should have signed confidentiality and security agreements and received appropriate training. Responsibility for the emails should then be allocated to a specific individual, or two at the most, whose task it will be to review them.

Some emails might need to be retained, for example, in order to comply with health and safety obligations. Where that is the case, the relevant emails should be held securely for as long as they serve their purpose and then be deleted. The emails that contain purely personal information should be destroyed, although it would be sensible to consult the deceased staff member’s next of kin before doing so.

When the time comes, it is important to make sure that the emails are disposed of securely. That means not simply pressing “delete” but having it professionally removed from all storage devices they have been saved on including, for example, a company Blackberry or laptop.

Although this is, fortunately, a rare dilemma, you should consider amending existing email policies so that in the future a particular member of staff has specific responsibility for confidentially and securely retaining all employee information after a member of staff’s employment is terminated. It will then be his or her job to irretrievably delete it after a specified period of time.

To make reviewing staff emails more efficient in future, you may also want to include a requirement in your email usage policy for employees to clearly mark any non-work-related emails as “personal” and ask that third parties who contact them do the same. It is also good practice to include a statement that staff emails may be monitored in company email headers or footers so that third parties who contact employees are aware of this.

Emma Dickinson, solicitor, Simpson Millar LLP


<TABLE style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 8px 0px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(230,227,245)" cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=3 border=0



Get answers to more questions on legal issues involving information technology:





  • Can a defamatory comment posted by an employee on his or her Facebook page be used as evidence in the employee’s disciplinary proceedings?
  • What are the implications for employers of art.8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence)?

Avatar
Personnel Today

previous post
Workforce engagement: lessons from the third sector
next post
Legal Q&A: Auto-enrolment – are you ready for 2012?

You may also like

Netherlands on track to approve working from home...

7 Jul 2022

Employment law changes for 2022 and beyond: update...

1 Jul 2022

Chief financial officers now more involved in HR

1 Jul 2022

Four-day week: what are the legal considerations for...

28 Jun 2022

CIPD Festival of Work: ‘Use crises as catalysts...

15 Jun 2022

Sickness absence rate in 2021 was highest in...

8 Jun 2022

Right-to-work: first digital identity check providers revealed

6 Jun 2022

Bank holidays: six things employers need to know

5 Jun 2022

Does a four day week work? Charlotte Lockhart...

1 Jun 2022

Hybrid working will ‘never be perfect’, finds report

31 May 2022
  • Preventing Burnout: How can HR help key workers get the right help? PROMOTED | Workplace wellbeing may seem a distant memory...Read more
  • The ultimate guide to payroll for small businesses PROMOTED | You’ve started a business that has expanded to the point of requiring more staff to meet demand. Congratulations!...Read more
  • NSPCC revamps its learning strategy with child wellbeing at its heart PROMOTED | The NSPCC’s mission is to prevent abuse and neglect...Read more
  • Diversity versus inclusion: Why the difference matters PROMOTED | It’s possible for an environment to be diverse, but not inclusive...Read more
  • Five steps for organisations across the globe to become more skills-driven PROMOTED | The shift in the world of work has been felt across the globe...Read more
  • The future of workforce development PROMOTED | Northumbria University and partners share insight...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+