The legal aspects of corporate e-mail investigations

The undertaking of e-mail investigations was previously limited mainly to law enforcement agencies. However, UK organisations are increasingly undertaking e-mail investigation activities for incidents such as fraud, accessing or distributing indecent images and harassment amongst others. Organisations are also increasingly using computer forensic analysts to search through e-mail archives in order to gather evidence relating to e-mail misuse. In this paper we examine the legal aspects of UK corporate e-mail investigations.