Surprising, or not? We already know that the majority of IT departments snoop on your web browsing behavior, but now it's revealed that a new study shows that a third confess to reading your email as well. Techworld has the story.

Best quote from the piece: One IT administrator laughingly said: "Why does it surprise you that so many of us snoop around your files; wouldn’t you, if you had secret access to anything you can get your hands on?"

While your employee handbook probably says that the IT department does indeed have free access to anything that passes through its servers (and you should behave yourself accordingly when you use the corporate network), there are some legal ramifications of IT department snooping to be considered by any HR departments reading this blog post. Salary negotiations, job offers, and even harassment complaints can be sent via email. Senior management negotiations are another thorny issue: If certain info is leaked it could even be used in insider trading incidents. Does the IT department's right to data inspection extend to every bit of data on the network? Most managers, I'd expect, would have a problem with that assumption.

The study points to an even more serious problem: 1/4 of survey respondents said they knew of former staff members who still had access to the network, despite having left the company. While current IT staff snooping may live in a gray ethical area, former employees are clearly over the line.

What's the policy where you work? Have you even read it? 

LINK: IT admins read private email, says report