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Speaker 1: Heather do for Cellen, Right, how about this. If you

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Speaker 1: have a habit of using colorful language or slagging people

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Speaker 1: off in your work emails or your work chat on

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Speaker 1: the phone, you better be careful because your boss might

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Speaker 1: be able to see more than you think too. Ministry

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Speaker 1: of Justice staff has got in a bit of trouble

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Speaker 1: for calling an academic the B word in some Microsoft

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Speaker 1: Teams messages that have now been made public under the

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Speaker 1: Official Information Act. Joe Williams is an employment lawyer at

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Speaker 1: Duncan Coltrol And with us. Now, hey, Joe, he are

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Speaker 1: you very well? Thank you? Now for the purposes of

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Speaker 1: this discussion, my boss pays for my phone and gives

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Speaker 1: me the device, Can he read my emails?

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Speaker 2: In a word, yes, unless there's an agreement otherwise. Essentially

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Speaker 2: the work owns the device, they pay for it, so

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Speaker 2: they're entitled to access it just as any other.

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Speaker 1: Tool of trade without telling me.

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Speaker 2: I think you'll often see workplaces in terms of delivering

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Speaker 2: these devices to staff giving them to you that there

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Speaker 2: will be some expectations setting around that. But ultimately you

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Speaker 2: have to assume, yes, that there's going to be fair

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Speaker 2: game for employers accessing essentially devices that they own and

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Speaker 2: data that they own, again, unless there's been in agreement otherwise,

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Speaker 2: or if there's been particular areas of the device carved

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Speaker 2: out that are private.

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Speaker 1: What about if you are running on your work supply

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Speaker 1: device a private Gmail account, can they access that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is an interesting one, and I can

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Speaker 2: say I've done this as well on my work devices,

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Speaker 2: as I think a lot of people do. In terms

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Speaker 2: of an employer going into your personal Gmail accounts and

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Speaker 2: things like that, I think that potentially would be seen

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Speaker 2: as invasive. But the simple point is if you want

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Speaker 2: to make sure it doesn't happen, then just be a

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Speaker 2: bit guarded about your own data privacy and be logging

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Speaker 2: out of those accounts on work devices. Ultimately, you don't

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Speaker 2: own them. You can't be in total control of who

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Speaker 2: is going to access the stuff that is on them.

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Speaker 1: But Joe, you're making it sound like they are able

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Speaker 1: to access things remotely, like potentially while you're not aware

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Speaker 1: they are logging on and going through your apps. Is

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Speaker 1: that what's up?

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Speaker 2: I think it would depend a bit on the capabilities

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Speaker 2: of a business. So you know, large corporates with sophisticated

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Speaker 2: IT teams, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. And often

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Speaker 2: there's a very good reason for having you know, an

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Speaker 2: I T team remote onto someone's device to help them

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Speaker 2: out with an I issue. For example, smaller smaller businesses

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Speaker 2: where you're talking giving a small teams and funds to

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Speaker 2: use and things like that, I'd say it's less likely

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Speaker 2: to be that active monitoring. But ultimately, if the employer

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Speaker 2: owns the device, they do have an entitlement to the

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Speaker 2: data that from it.

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Speaker 1: Fascinating, Okay, so that would mean basically that it's everything

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Speaker 1: that you do on your device, right, It's if you're

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Speaker 1: sending text messages, they'd be able to see if you're

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Speaker 1: accessing websites like porn, they'd be able to see that stuff,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't they.

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Speaker 2: I mean, to a degree the porn questions interesting, I'd

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Speaker 2: say yes, and it's probably never a good idea in

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Speaker 2: the first place to be doing that sort of thing

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Speaker 2: on a work device. But in terms of private text messages,

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Speaker 2: I mean, there is a line there in terms of

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Speaker 2: a reasonable expectation of privacy, and again there's been a

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Speaker 2: degree to which an employer would be criticized for intruding

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Speaker 2: into that. But again, the simple messages if you don't

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Speaker 2: want to have to deal with the situation where that's happened,

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Speaker 2: just be a bit guarded about your data privacy in

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Speaker 2: the first place, and you won't get into hot.

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Speaker 1: Water fascinating stuff. Joe, thank you very much. I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate it. Joe William's employment lawyer at Duncan Control. For

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Speaker 1: more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.