Ever wonder if your boss knows you’ve been reading job postings, or if there’s an IT worker who read that mushy e-mail you sent to your latest love interest? Such seeming paranoia may not be as unrealistic as we’d like to believe.



“You are being watched at work whether you know it or not,” says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute.



Sixty-three percent of large and mid-sized companies monitor Internet use and 46.5% store and review e-mails, according to an annual study by the American Management Association.



Writing e-mails and roaming the Web feels private. Many workers would rather research a health issue online than call a doctor, or will flirt with a co-worker via e-mail but not in front of the boss.



But this perceived anonymity is an illusion.



“You need to work on the assumption that your employer is reading over your electronic shoulder,” says Nancy Flynn, author of The ePolicy Handbook and executive director of the ePolicy Institute. “If you work in an office, you should assume you are being monitored.”



Let’s face it, when you’re at the office you’re working on company time and using company equipment. Even your individual e-mail account is technically company property. Don’t expect to find help from the courts in these matters.



“The case law is overwhelmingly on the side of the employer,” says Deborah Pierce, a privacy attorney.



Businesses have legitimate reasons for screening online activity — like investigating sexual harassment, protecting themselves against lawsuits, safeguarding their intellectual property and making sure they don’t lose productivity to Internet addictions.



“You shouldn’t assume that your employer is an electronic voyeur and wants to know about your personal life,” Flynn says. It’s hard to imagine a company that would dedicate resources to prying into employees’ harmless extracurricular activities.



Still, there may be individuals in your company who can access everything you say and do in e-mail and online. It’s up to you to decide how far you’re willing to trust their good intentions.



Here’s what you can do to protect your electronic privacy:



Perform Your Own Background Check



Companies are not required to have an official policy for e-mail and Internet use or to inform employees of monitoring. Larger companies are more likely to keep tabs on employees. Businesses in the financial services sector (banks, insurance, real estate, etc.) do the most intensive monitoring.



Ask human resources whether your company has a policy in place. If so, request a copy and read it.



If you can’t get an official answer, try to get the inside scoop from friends in IT. They may be able to offer details that aren’t explicit in the company’s written statement — such as how much attention the company pays to collected data and what type of information it looks for. Does the company read e-mails at random or filter for certain content or language?



Talk with your boss about his or her expectations. Most managers understand a certain amount of personal correspondence is necessary during working hours, especially as employees clock longer days.



Keep It Clean



When companies conduct keyword searches in e-mail monitoring, “explicit sexual or scatological” language is the most common things they look for, according to a follow-up to the AMA study conducted with the ePolicy Institute.



“Always think twice before you hit the send button,” says Frank Scanlan, a spokesperson for the Society for Human Resource Management.



Passing along a joke to co-workers may feel like a good way to foster workplace friendships, but any salacious content could raise a red flag and trigger an investigation of your e-mail habits. Likewise, visiting an inappropriate Web site may cause your employer to pay more attention to how you use their equipment.



Such investigations can lead to discipline or even dismissal.



If you receive an e-mail that violates the company’s policy don’t reply or forward it, advises Flynn. Even writing back to reprimand the sender can loop you into an investigation. Instead, discuss it in person or over the phone. If the situation does not improve, consider informing your supervisor.



Don’t Bad Mouth



Think you have nothing to hide? You should still watch what you say. It’s not just about keeping your personal life secret.



Here’s a quick reality check: Ranting about your boss or coworker over the company’s e-mail system can get you fired and, in some cases, could even land you in court with defamation charges.



If you must vent, do it in person, preferably off company property. One-on-one conversations leave no trace, whereas there’s no guarantee your e-mail messages are deleted from the system.



“You never know who the ultimate reader is,” Flynn says.



You cannot prevent your recipient from forwarding your message to unexpected readers, and many companies have the technical capacity to retrieve messages even after they’ve been deleted from individual accounts.



Maintain Separation



Avoid combining your professional and personal business on the company’s network.



If you need to have a truly confidential communication at work, pick up the phone. Or better yet, take your cell phone outside and make the call.



Using a personal Web-based e-mail account at work is smarter than sending private messages over the company system, but still not fail-safe.



A number of software companies offer programs that allow employers to track every keystroke you make, meaning they can see all the messages you send from those personal accounts and may also be able to obtain your password. This technology is still fairly new and not widely used, but as the software becomes more affordable, it may become more common.



If you receive files that you don’t want your employer to see, have them e-mailed to your personal account and then save them directly onto a floppy disk.



There is some good news on the horizon. A few new technologies will help employers be less invasive while still obtaining the information they need, Maltby says.



New Web-monitoring software can enforce companies’ Internet policies by controlling the types of sites workers may visit and the amount of time they can spend online. And an e-mail tracking system maintains a log of the messages each worker sends without displaying the text.



The most important thing, though, is simply to remember you have no right to expect privacy on your company’s computer system. If you use care and limit the personal information you disclose, monitoring shouldn’t interfere with your privacy.