'Until the government's proposed new laws are drafted, the monitoring of emails and other electronic communications in the workplace will remain an issue of some angst. Ideally employers should obtain their employee's consent before doing so, or they should at the very least circulate and enforce an electronic communications policy of the type referred to above. Whilst strictly speaking it is not necessary for them to do so in order to monitor email traffic through their own server, it makes for less confrontational workplace relations if they do.'