Why you shouldn't use Slack, email, or iMessage to talk to your co-workers
by Ray Bass
A crucial element of the modern workplace has been and will always be communication. Before the rise of the Internet, that communication was face to face or over the phone. Today, instant messaging platforms have become ubiquitous, and there are numerous ways to ping or chat with a co-worker—Slack, Google Chat, iMessage, email, you name it.
These platforms, of course, can be used for any form of communication, work-related or otherwise. And let’s face it—we’ve all used these platforms to air our personal grievances (or rather, to shit talk).
That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Venting or voicing complaints to others can be cathartic and helpful when dealing with frustration or seeking advice. And really, isn’t it sometimes better to confide in a friend, partner, or close co-worker than outright tell your boss? (That is, when the complaint isn’t of a serious nature and is more of an annoyance or byproduct of bureaucracy.)
But what you might not realize as you text your friends or partner on iMessage or ping your co-workers on Slack is that what happens on your work computer often stays there—so while it feels private, it truly isn’t.
From a legal standpoint, any activity that happens on a company-owned device (e.g. a computer or phone) is considered property of your employer. (You usually sign away your rights to your work product, including communications, when you accept a job offer.) Numerous courts have held that employers can monitor their employees’ work emails in the interest of preventing security breaches and protecting proprietary information. They’ve also reinforced that there’s no expectation of privacy on a company device, domain, or server.
Given that your email is almost certainly registered under a company domain, it’s not surprising that your company could pillage your Inbox. Slack, on the other hand, presents a false pretense of “private chats”—the same goes for G-chat. Because your G-chat is linked to your work account, those messages may be just as visible to your company as your emails. There are ways to make them more secure, but then again, your employer could always just log in to your email. Never forget: They hold the keys to the castle.
Earlier versions of Slack only allowed office administrators to see and save messages in public channels (think your company group chat, where anyone can join), but an update made by Slack in 2018 expanded employers’ access to include private chats and direct messages. Here’s what that means for you, according to Slack’s website:
All Slack workplace owners will be able to export and download “all public channel data: messages and links to files included.”
Those who buy the Plus plan can request access to “a self-service export tool” to download “all data from their workspace.” This includes “content from public and private channels and direct messages.”
Automatic notices to employees will be discontinued. The employer will now decide whether users will be told their conversations are being exported. (Source: NBC News)
Now, they can’t read everything you’re writing in real time—your company would have to download all of your personal Slack activity and sort through it. Also, smaller companies that have only a few employees may not be using Slack’s Plus plan, which allows employers to do this. Larger companies are more likely to have this access, since the Plus plan is a paid subscription based on how many employee accounts are needed.
The good news is that you can delete your Slack messages by adjusting your retention settings. For example, when you leave your job, it’s wise to set your message retention to 1 day and make sure all of your private chats have been cleared before your departure. That said, if the controversy surrounding Away taught us anything, it’s that anyone can screenshot a chat, and that screenshot doesn’t go away, no matter what your settings are.
As for iMessage, the only way they can read your messages is if you logged into your account with your Apple ID and failed to log out before handing over your computer. When you’re logged in, any message can be located through your computer’s Spotlight Search bar. Should you insist on using iMessage to text on your Mac, my advice is to log out every time you leave work. It’s not paranoia—it’s precautionary.
Sure, there’s probably a way that employers can override these settings, and there’s a chance you’ll miss something during your sweep. The more blockades you put in the way of finding your messages—deleting your emails before you leave a job, setting your Slacks to automatically erase, logging out of your Apple ID—the less likely your company is to dig for them, I would think. This is assuming you’re just complaining about something or someone, and not leaking trade secrets or violating company policy. The excavation has to be worth it for them.
At the end of the day, we shouldn’t expect privacy on any product, device, or platform to be confidential provided that an employer is paying for it. For any non work-related communications—even seemingly innocuous ones—stick to texting directly from your personal phone and using your personal email, neither of which should be linked to your work computer. This is the best way to ensure that your private comments remain private, and that you aren’t putting your job at risk. In this age of surveillance and the “everyone’s replaceable” mentality, it’s best to assume someone’s always watching.